Carpentry
by LegendDairy
Summary: It's been a few years now after the war and Grimmauld Place needs to get some renovations before the depressing dump just completely drives its two occupants over the deep end. How luck that in this AU WWW does not stand for Weasley Wizard Wheeze, but is in fact the perfect company for the renovation job. Hinny.
1. Month One

**Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter. And yes, I know Hogwarts is free according to what JKR decided to tell everyone in 2015. If you read carefully enough you will notice I mentioned nothing about tuition being the factor keeping the Weasley's from attending Hogwarts. (Can you tell those reviews have been bugging me?)**

**And now, on to the story.**

**Carpentry- Month One**

Sirius sat in the kitchen drinking his coffee. This was the third time in two weeks that his godson had brought a lady home.

The boy was long overdue for some fun. He'd been training his whole life to bring down Voldemort, and he'd been cut off from the world in order to do that training. After they finally managed to get rid of the bastard for good Harry had sunk into a broody type of depression. He'd been robbed of his childhood and had very little friends. The one's that he did have were a few years older than him as well.

It took a year for him to shake off that depression, then he took to travelling.

Sirius had thought that the travelling would be a good call. Get some life experiences, see the world and all it had to offer. The kid had been tucked away in a secluded cottage since he was seven with only his ex-convict godfather and a werewolf for company until the age of thirteen, which was when they opened up a few trusted individuals to help him with his training and the Horcrux hunt, the youngest one was still nine years older than Harry.

Travelling to places where he wasn't recognized was good for getting him out of his depression, he'd seen some people who had it much worse than he had in a few third-world countries. He'd also got the chance to try out some great experiences like Hang Gliding and going on rollercoasters and the like.

They'd been back for a year now and had moved into Sirius' old family home in London. The house was a mess, the house elf hadn't kept it up and they'd come across his mangled body in the kitchen where he'd tried to decapitate himself. It was pretty gruesome.

After a few months of gutting the place together and getting rid of nearly every artifact they'd stumbled across, Harry decided it was time to take up the Ministry's offer of an Auror position for him.

Wonderful.

He had a purpose again, he would be around people his own age at work. Sirius had really hoped that this would make him happy. He was in his early twenties and had been deprived of a normal life. Working for the Ministry was as normal a lifestyle as they came.

Now Harry was embracing some of his celebrity. It had been going on for a few months. At first Sirius couldn't help but think 'good on him'. He was getting experience with women, yet one more thing he'd never had before.

The first morning that Sirius had accidentally bumped into one of these girls in the corridor he'd just smirked at Harry as he passed them by and teased him about how he was a man now later on. Then he'd seen a new girl leaving Harry's room, then another.

He didn't want to be hypocritical about it. He'd certainly cycled through enough women when he was a young man, but it was getting to be a point of concern. He didn't think that James and Lily would have appreciated him keeping his mouth shut about the number of conquests their son had had.

The two of them had fallen hard for each other and were each other's first and only lovers. But, James and Lily had had shining examples in their own parents of what a relationship should look like though.

Harry had only Sirius and Remus, neither of which had a proper partner until after Voldemort fell. Sirius still didn't, and Remus had only admitted to wanting Nymphadora two years ago and hadn't been around too much since. They still saw him, but not much of he and Tonks together.

With his coffee now finished he rubbed a hand over his face and rose to his feet.

He'd decided it was time to call in the professionals to revamp the house. It was a depressing nightmare as it was, even with all of the horrible tapestries and house elf heads off the wall gone. There was so much potential in the house and he wanted that to shine through.

There had been a while that he thought about selling it off all together, but then he'd gone to visit Longbottom Manor. He remembered it from his Order days the first time around. There was this awful dining room and entryway that was very dated and drab. When he went this time it was not at all the same place. The mix of modern and ancestral touches throughout the main floor was feast for the eyes.

Each room he walked into gave him a different feeling that was so in sync with the rooms purpose. The Library had comfortable armchairs by a fire, the wall was a warm color that hugged you when you came in. The shelves housing the books themselves beckoned you to them. And the space inside, given the actual size of the room, was larger.

He asked Augusta about it in her sitting room. A light room that invited conversation somehow. She had hired a small company that had done the whole remodel. They used subtle expansion charms and had a way of making each room feel to its inhabitants the way it ought to.

She gave him their card and he'd Owled them right away.

The company was in demand it turned out. For good reason. After five months of back and forth they were finally free and ready to come and visit Grimmauld Place to have a meeting.

The door to the kitchen swung open as he was about to exit to get ready for the day.

"Morning." Harry wiped the sleep out of his eye. He was wearing only his pajama bottoms and his hair was as messy as always.

"Sleep well?" Sirius cocked an eye at him.

He shrugged in response and headed straight for the coffee pot. He was always so grumpy in the morning.

"Weren't up all-night shagging?" Sirius tried to tease him, but he hadn't put any effort behind the questions and it came out more of a remark on his choices than in jest.

Harry caught his eye at that. "Problem?" He challenged.

Sirius sighed. "No." He let it be, it was too early for a serious discussion. "I'm meeting with the renovation team today."

"Good." Harry dug through the cupboards to find some breakfast foods. "This place really needs it."

"Do you have to go in this morning? Care to meet them with me?" They had so few chances to actually spend time together now with his job and being out meeting up with the various women to bring home.

"Yeah. Have to go in in a half hour. Probably be out late again." He poured himself some cereal and sat down at the table.

Sirius nodded and left the kitchen. A pretty young brunette was coming down the stairs and squeaked when she saw him, faltering in her steps. "Sorry. Hi. Um."

Sirius just pointed his thumb towards the kitchen and walked around her heading up to the bathroom to clean up. As the girl opened the door to the kitchen, he heard Harry greet her by the name Stacy. From what he overheard before he was out of earshot her name was actually Stephanie.

()()

That damn drawer had done it again. Harry didn't know why he'd expected today to be any different than every other day.

The stupid drawer was impossible to move and when you finally get it to budge open it makes an awful noise and you have to struggle to get it back in. Why he didn't just get a new one or swap it out with another dresser from another room he didn't know.

Laziness maybe.

His muttering and bitching about the stupid drawer must have been what roused Stacy. Er. Stephanie. She'd been quite keen on him last night, and it hadn't taken much to get her to come back with him. Actually, it hadn't taken anything.

It never took any effort on his side. The girls that he'd wound up with were all throwing themselves at him because of his scar. But this was what guys his age did, right?

He was in his early twenties. Single guys in their early twenties went out to the pub and picked up women. Or in his case, women picked him up and he barely needed to utter a single word before they were handing him drinks.

Then he'd bring them home and wake up in the morning and struggle with his fucking dresser drawer.

Once or twice a week he would go out and he got no satisfaction from it anymore. Initially it had been exciting. Girls liked him and he enjoyed the kissing and the sex. But something was always missing.

He knew it was feelings that were missing. He'd been told of his parents relationship and he wanted that, but had no idea how to go about it.

Now he was just stuck in a cycle, not knowing any other way to go about it.

Stephanie didn't stay for coffee and he went up to get changed into his Auror uniform.

Truth was that Harry just had no idea what he was supposed to be doing with himself. Since the age of seven his whole life was about ending someone else's life.

How depressing was that.

But at least it had been a goal. Now he didn't really have one.

Things had gotten a little better for him when he'd joined the Aurors. The cases could be interesting, so could the people he worked with, but he hadn't had any experience with the whole 'social interaction' part of life and he was floundering with it a bit.

As it was, if this was how everyone his age got on, then life was pretty sad. Because he was pretty sad, and just couldn't figure out how not to be.

()()()()

At nine on the nose the door knocker echoed out through the main hall. Sirius answered the door to find two tall identical smiling ginger men. They were smartly dressed. Not overly, just button up shirts and clean blue jeans with suede shoes.

"Fred Weasley." The one stuck out his hand.

"George Weasley." The other said sticking out his own. The two of them shook his hand, then turned and shook each other's.

"Welcome. Thank you for coming." Sirius smiled at their antics and stepped back to let them in. After a bit of 'after you' 'no after you's between the two men they finally came in. They were amusing, Sirius thought with a chuckle and went to close the door behind them.

"Oi! I know I'm small, but I'm still here." Came a voice from the stoop.

Sirius pulled the door open again and saw a young lady with darker red hair than the twins holding two take-away beverage cups in her hands. "Sorry! Didn't see you there."

"Don't worry about it." She brushed it off then held out one of her beverages. "For you. It's a Chai latte. Horribly addictive, but if you haven't tried it yet, it'll change your life and haunt your dreams. In the best possibly way." She assured with a big smile.

"Ah, thank you." He took the offered cup a touch awkwardly. "Sirius Black." He introduced.

"Ginny Weasley." She smiled and looked behind him. "Wow. This place looks horribly depressing." She still sounded upbeat about that as she stepped in and looked up at the ceiling then wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Smells it too."

Sirius took in a whiff of the room. It smelled the same to him, but maybe he'd been here so long his oral faculties were simply used to it. Looking to the beverage in his hand he brought it tentatively to his lips and took a small sip. The taste was wonderfully smooth and spicy. He took a larger sip. "This is fantastic!" He exclaimed. "Chai Latte you say?"

The three Weasleys grinned at him. "She's going to get everyone hooked on them." One of the twins said. He had a 'G' on his shirt pocket, so it must have been George.

"I'm hoping that if they gain enough popularity then the price will lower." She stated optimistically and looked down at the carpet. "You want everything changed, right?"

He looked down at the carpeted floor too, and it was like he was seeing it for the first time. The patterns were faded, and there were signs of decades of wear along the most traveled paths. The color may have been gold and dark red at its first installation, but now it was more of a muddy brown. He looked back up from the carpet and saw that all three of them were silently laughing at his expression. "Everything." He agreed.

They spent hours going through every room in the place, including Harry's where Ginny picked up a stray bra with a ruler she'd produced from her bag, then flung it at one of her brothers, laughing, after Sirius begrudgingly explained its reason for being there.

After going through the house, they set up in the drawing room and Fred sketched out the floor plans from memory. A very accurate memory as he had even included the placement of the windows and fireplaces, as well as the four bathrooms sinks and such.

The three of them worked as a team, each assisting with all aspects, but Fred was more of the architect, George was the designer and decorator, Ginny was the carpenter. He would have thought Ginny and George's specialties be reversed based on gender roles. It was a nice surprise.

"We'd need you to make a list of the furniture you want to keep." George told him.

"Bear in mind that some of that awful dark wood can be made lighter and new again. We can even remove those little gremlins carved into the bedposts." Ginny told him.

"What gremlins?" Sirius asked trying to visualize which guest room had gremlins carved into the bed posts. "Which bedroom has that?"

Ginny raised her eyebrows and her lips parted slightly in surprise. "All of them." She said slowly, with an uptick in pitch with every word.

"Huh." He had never noticed that. "Feel free to remove all gremlins." He shrugged and chuckled again. It had been a long time since he'd smiled and laughed this much. He was feeling like his younger self again around these three. They had such great spirits, and his cheeks were hurting because of it.

Over the next hour they went over plans and suggestions that Sirius was growing excited about having done. He was eager for them to get started. It was around noon when Fred finally called for a break. "We need some food." He told Ginny.

"Oh. How rude, yes I can-" Sirius started.

"Don't worry about it." Ginny told him and dug a hand into her bag. She handed a sandwich to Fred, one to George and then pulled out two more. "Our brother Ron has a deli in Hogsmeade, he makes the best panini's on the isle. You aren't allergic to anything, are you?" She asked and handed him a sandwich as well.

"I. Uh, no. No allergies." He accepted the sandwich in surprise. She kept digging in her bag and retrieved a thermos and four cups as well as individual sized treacle tart. "You really come prepared, don't you?" This had not at all been what he'd expected. They were all laid back, humorous and so easy to get on with. They were feeding him and carrying on like they were in their own home with an old friend.

"Have to when we're working long hours, sometimes in the middle of nowhere." Fred told him, pouring a cup of whatever was in the thermos. "We'd love to get our hands on this place." He looked around.

George and Ginny nodded.

Sirius was mildly taken aback at that. "Jobs yours." He said like there was no question about it. If they'd been sneering business suit type, then he would have taken longer to think it over. But he was ready to hire them based on Ginny's mention of the carpet in the entryway alone.

"Wonderful!" George beamed.

Ginny fished in her bag again. It had to be one of the never-ending bags with a featherlight charm on it. "I have a contract right here. We'll have to fill in estimated times and materials. Judging on the size of the house and the number of rooms, plus time we'll need a deposit of..." She looked at the twins and then grimaced slightly. "15,000 Galleons."

"Done." Sirius dusted off his hands. The panini was indeed delicious, just like the Chai Latte had been. They seemed nervous about the amount, but 15,000 Galleons was less than he had been anticipating for a deposit. He'd figured on near 100,000 for the whole job. The three of them seemed to think it was quite high, maybe he'd walk away with getting the renovation done at a steal.

"Great!" Ginny smiled. "Some other things though. About wards, NDA, and a clause about any Dark Artifacts that we might come across. We need to go over those before we can put a start date."

"You need an NDA?" He asked in surprise.

"We thought you might want one actually." Fred told him delicately. "Because, you know. Harry Potter lives here." He said simply.

"Well, that's considerate of you, but unnecessary. The Fidelus on the place was removed a year ago, and the wards can be changed to allow the three of you access through the front door. Did you need Floo access?" They nodded. "I'll add that too."

"Then, about any dark artifacts we come across." George said hesitantly. "We will go through and cast a detection spell in every room on the agreed upon start date. If there are any that we find _we_ will dispose of them. So, if there is anything that you know of that you don't want us to dispose of, we suggest you move it to your vault at Gringotts before we start." He told him in the most serious tone he'd used yet.

Sirius shook his head. "I know there were several in the house when we first moved in. I think I got all of them, but if you find any more, do away with them however you see fit."

The three of them relaxed slightly at that.

"Then we will leave this contract with you to read over." Fred jotted down numbers in columns on the last page and handed it over to Sirius. "Earliest we can start is two days from now. We only do Monday through Friday. No weekends, but we will do evenings so long as you provide dinner." He winked exaggeratedly.

Sirius chuckled. It would be nice to have these three around the house for a few weeks.

()()()

Three years they'd been doing this now since they'd turned this into an actual career. And it had started off so small, but turned out so brilliantly. It was a miracle really that the three of them had each been passionate about it.

See, Ginny's room was the smallest in the house. It had been the nursery across from their mum and dad's room. As more kids came along after Bill an extra floor was added to the house and all of the toddlers would graduate up to a new floor as the next sibling came along.

Meaning that with her being the last one, she stayed in the nursery.

It wasn't like she 'needed' the extra space, but there was barely any room to move once she got a proper sized bed. The dresser drawer would bump the bed when it was open fully, the closet door had been taken off because it was really more of an obstruction.

When she was twelve she had a fit of frustration with absolutely everything wrong with the room, her going through puberty had absolutely not been the cause of her meltdown no matter what anyone said, and the twins had come to her room just as she was throwing things out the window because she felt so suffocated. As she was normally the 'happy go lucky' one of the group, they'd taken it to heart that something had to be done.

There wasn't anything they could do to the outside structure being that the next floor up was precariously perched as it was, but there were some charms that they could put in place to magically expand the inside of her room.

They were all home schooled, so with their mum's permission they used it as a Charms project and removed everything from her room before the two of them started the spells. It took them all day to get it right, but once it was done she had an extra four inches added to the perimeter of the room.

That may not sound like much, but it made a whole world of a difference to her. She took the opportunity with the empty room to spruce up her floors and walls. She painted and sanded, and with the help of her brothers they pulled her closet door from the shed and cleaned it up before hanging it back up.

Each piece of furniture that she put back into her room she spent time sprucing up and making it her own. Her room looked like it truly belonged to her when she was done.

The twins decided they wanted to do the same thing with their room too, so she offered to help with their floors, walls and furniture as well.

They made their way through the whole house over the next year and turned each room into something unique. When you walked into their parents bedroom, it felt like their parents. When you walked into Ron's bedroom, you felt like it truly belonged to him. Percy's room even now invited his studious atmosphere.

Convincing their mum to declutter the sitting room or the kitchen didn't go over, so they added a room onto dad's shed so they could organize and store all the excess odds and ends that they'd had scattered around the Burrow.

Once they were done, even Percy was impressed.

It had been fun, and it had brought the three of them even closer. It felt good to have something to keep their hands occupied when the world outside the Burrow was growing more and more chaotic with the war.

After finishing with the Burrow, they started building a tree house. The treehouse turned into their testing room. They played with combining paints and spells so each color would emit the feelings associated with them. Yellow actually made you feel happy, Red made you feel warm and loved, green made you feel at peace. They made up mock plans for future houses they'd planned for themselves to build and brought different pieces of furniture they would find that were set for garbage pickup in the neighboring villages and refurbish them. These pieces were sold on consignment at the local shop in Ottery St. Catchpole.

To their delight their pieces had sold quite quickly.

Their dad had been worried they were using magic on the pieces at first, and demanded they let him check them over for spells. He was in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department at the Ministry and wanted to make sure his own children wouldn't wind up on a dossier on his desk for breaking the law he was meant to enforce.

He'd been delighted to find that they hadn't used magic to enchant the items, just to strip it down and find the natural appeal of the things. They changed up hinges and handles and such, making all of the difference.

After the war they'd started doing small jobs. The Lovegoods, their neighbors, home was attacked by Death Eaters so they'd gone over to help with the cleanup efforts, and gave it a little extra of their touches to restore the home. Xenophelius Lovegood was very appreciative and asked if he could pass along their names to a friend who needed likewise assistance with their home.

From there they picked up more small jobs, then less small jobs, then bigger jobs. Now they were about to do an entire home in the middle of London. Of a Nobel Lord!

Sirius Black had seemed quite pleased with them, and he signed the contract by the end of the day.

She and the twins went out and celebrated that night. This job was going to be a huge undertaking, probably three months at least. They'd need to gut the place room by room and fix up every piece of furniture and ornate mantelpiece.

It would be magnificent by the time they were done though.

The three of them met up at the Leaky Cauldron to see Percy after he was done work to tell him the good news and pick his brain about any permits they would need for the job. He'd been a good source of information for them so they could keep all their work on the up and up.

She was in need of a good night out. Ginny had a few good girlfriends scattered around the isle, but more often than not she wound up going out with her brothers. They put a cramp on her dating life, and after her last disappointing relationship she was welcome to them stopping men from hitting on her right now.

Ginny went to the bar to get them all drinks and was carrying a tray laden with shots and beer back to her table when someone pulled one of them off. "Hey." She rounded on the person. "I'm not a waitress, these aren't bloody samples." She scolded the guy and pulled the shot out of his hand and put it back on her tray before looking properly at the drink thief. "Oh shit."

It was Harry Potter. A very drunk Harry Potter. A barely managing to stand Harry Potter."Can I have it now?" He asked pretentiously as though his celebrity meant he was entitled to the shot.

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed. So what if he lived with the owner of the house she and the twins had just gotten a contract for. So what if he was the defeater of the Dark Lord. So what if she found him attractive. A sense of entitlement was easily the least attractive thing a person could have in her opinion. He had a girl hanging onto his arm looking up at him like he was a God, and he was just staring at Ginny and expecting her to hand over her hard-earned liquor. "No, piss off and sober up." She told him, then continued on her way back to her brothers at the corner of the room. "Drink up boys." She placed the tray down and took back her shot in one go.

Looking behind her, she couldn't see Harry Potter anywhere. He was nearly falling down drunk if his glassy eyed expression was anything to go off of. It was only just going on seven in the evening.

On a Friday, but still.

She felt bad for judging him. It was just what men did at that age, was it not? Drinking and sleeping around. He just happened to be in the limelight. She just couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed that her childhood dream guy turned out to drop his trousers for every girl that spread her legs. But she was here to celebrate, so she pushed it out of her mind. And kept the altercation to herself.

()()

On Monday the Weasley crew showed up at Grimmauld Place and changed the wards on the Floo and the main door with a drop of their blood. The older magic homes used the ancient ways of tuning the house, which required a drop of blood mixed with the rightful owners.

Ginny had brought Sirius another Chai Latte, which he gratefully accepted, and they went over all of the plans they'd made over the weekend.

He approved them all and the three set to work in topmost part of the house first.

Sirius joined them when they broke for lunch and eagerly accepted the treacle tart they'd offered as well. He hung around with them and even assisted with levitating the furniture out of the room to the next floor below. He regaled them with stories of his Hogwarts days and pranks that he pulled on his fellow students and staff. They told him tales of growing up with so many siblings and how they got their start in this business.

"So now that the furniture is all out, what's next?" Sirius asked Ginny as they stood out in the hall after lunch, the twins had gone into the room to re-size it.

"The twins are going to scope out the dimensions of the room and make sure it is optimal, then we'll strip it down. The floors, the wall treatments, the ceiling, until it is completely bare. George will figure out the right color for the walls and we'll get it painted up. Then he'll find the right window treatments and such. I'll have to go through a more detailed list of your furniture and see what fits in the space properly before moving anything back in." She looked down the corridor at the floorboards. "This is going to look stupid." She warned him and started skipping slowly on each of the different boards.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked with a laugh.

"Squeak testing." She smiled and carried on, leaning down and marking each board that protested.

"You seeing anyone?" Sirius asked her curiously.

That threw her for a moment, but she was pretty sure he wasn't about to hit on her. "No. Why, you interested?" She winked saucily.

He barked out laughter. "If I was any younger." He shook his head. "Why though? You just not find the right one?"

Ginny shrugged. "Been single for a few months now. 'Married to my job' was the excuse the last one gave me. I guess it's true. Did me a favor really. Didn't even realize that I never really liked him much. I'm not looking for Mr. Right at the moment anyways. Just enjoying my work and spending time with family. And I coach a kids Quidditch league on the weekends. That all keeps me pretty busy."

"You play?" Sirius asked in happy surprise. "What position?"

"Ready." George came out of the room wiping his hands on his trousers. "Sorry to break up the fun." He handed Ginny a pair of coveralls.

Ginny gave Sirius a mock salute in farewell and went into the room. They closed the door and cast Bubblehead charms on themselves before each taking a different corner of the room and pointing their wands at the floor to begin the stripping spell.

It took two days to get the top floor properly stripped down and early on the Wednesday morning the twins got right to work with painting and Ginny was doing an inventory of the furniture when she went into Harry's room and startled a girl that was getting dressed. "Sorry!" She yelled through the door from the hallway after she'd shut it quickly.

The girl opened the door a few seconds later with her dress on. "I'm so sorry!" Ginny said to her again. "I didn't think anyone was in there."

The girl looked her up and down. "Just from one to the next then is it?" She huffed and stormed past her. Ginny stood in the open doorway until she heard the front door open and close, then started to snicker. Another satisfied customer of the one and only Harry Potter.

She looked down at her outfit. It was a tan unisex coverall and her hair was tucked up in a cap, how could that girl have possibly thought that she was here for sex? Maybe some role play? Oh, or a sexy striptease! Ginny made a mental note to try that one with a future boyfriend.

She'd yet to see anyone but Sirius in the house, besides anonymous girl there and Sirius himself. Sirius told her that Harry ducked out before eight most mornings and didn't get home until late. She felt bad for him when he told her that. He seemed lonely, but he'd been a very lively lunch companion the past two days and she made sure to bring an extra piece of treacle tart for him every day.

They'd gotten really good word of mouth and used the same approach to every meeting. Regardless of who the customer might be, the twins acted like the twins, and Ginny acted like herself. She brought the customer a beverage from a Muggle shop and lunch for all.

The reaction of the customer is what they were looking for. It didn't matter to them who the customer was. They could have been on the losing side of the war, or goblin, or an aristocratic ex-convict, so long as they had the right attitude they'd take the job.

Sirius had been a pleasant surprise for them. They'd worried because he was the head of a Nobel house and had been a key factor in the downfall of the Dark Lord, and well, they didn't know what to expect. But he was down to earth and funny. He had a slightly haunted look to his eyes though. Made her wonder what he'd think if she greeted him with a hug every day, because he looked like he could do with a hug.

She turned to the dresser in Harry's room. It was beautiful oak, with a horrible dark finish. She ran her hand over it and pulled one of the drawers open. It required a lot of force.

"Ginny?" Sirius asked from the doorway.

"Hey." She didn't look up from the dresser, she was checking out the sides to see how it sat on the frame.

"What are you doing?"

"Pantie raid." She picked up one of the pairs of boxers inside without looking at it. "Bet I could auction this off for a charity." She flung it at him.

He caught them and walked over to the dresser tossing them back in. "Seriously, what are you doing?"

"Checking out the furniture. This one is nice solid oak, but the drawers are impossible. Must be frustrating." She struggled to shove the drawer back into place. "I'd consider putting rollers on the side if it weren't such an old piece, but maybe I could fashion something with ball bearings." She pondered.

"Thought I heard someone leave?" He asked.

"There was a straggler in here when I came in and frightened her." Ginny smirked.

Sirius sighed and sat down on the davenport. "He's been going through this phase." He said by way of explanation.

"Seems you don't approve." She noted. "And please don't sit on that. It's a writing desk, sit on the bed." She shooed him away so she could inspect the desk. It too was oak, with a leather inlay for a writing surface and an intricate iron design on the sides. He smirked at her bossiness and moved over to the bed and perched on the edge of it. "You think he's going a little over board with his celebrity?" She asked while checking out the desk.

"I don't want to stop him from having fun, lord knows he missed out on enough of that when he was growing up, but it'd be nice to see him going about it a little differently." Sirius admitted. "What do you do in your spare time for fun? Besides coaching little league Quidditch?"

"Visit with friends, hang out with my mum and dad, go to the market and chat with the vendors." She shrugged. "Every now and again I tie one on at the pub, usually with one of my brothers in tow." She looked up at his sad face. "What do _you_ do for fun?"

He started to say something a few times. She could see him trying to think of anything he did that could be considered 'fun'. "I am so bored." He admitted morosely. "The last time I remember having fun was when I joined Harry for a bit in the States and we went to an amusement park. That was near two years ago, and before that I was just trying to raise him and prepare him to fight Voldemort. Before that I was in Azkaban."

"Sounds like you should work on setting a healthy example for him." She told him pointedly.

"Where do I even start?" He asked looking lost.

"Ever think that that might be the same question Harry asked himself?" She answered.

He looked floored.

"I'll take that as a 'no'." She took a seat beside him and looked over one of the four posters and the foot board. "Start small. Find something that you like to do." She suggested.

"I like Quidditch." He said thoughtfully.

"Great. Go see a game or two. Invite Harry along."

"Yeah. Yeah, I could do that." He said brightly. "That sounds like a great idea actually! I'm going to go check the Prophet for the next game." He patted her knee once and walked out of the room.

Ginny kept on inspecting the rest of the furniture in the room and couldn't resist making the bed before she left. Her mum had ingrained an obsessive-compulsive need in her when it came to making the bed.

()()

Thursday morning Harry crawled out of bed and went to his daily torture device.

He supposed this was a small sacrifice to pay to not have anyone trying to track him down and kill him anymore. Or the reverse, someone he had to track down and kill. But this dresser was one of the things he was hoping the renovators were going to get rid of.

It was especially hard to deal with this when he was hung over.

He gripped onto the two handles of the drawer and gave them a pull. Generally it would squeak open inch by inch and he would have to shake the thing back into place after, but now it slid open gracefully and hit his thigh.

He blinked down at the open drawer and saw a small note laying on top of his underpants. It simply read 'You're Welcome'.

He picked up the note and studied the scroll of the words in awe.

He looked back at his drawer and closed it. Then he opened it again. Each time the movements were so smooth. This drawer had been a freaking nightmare. Now the renovators had fixed his dresser and left a cheeky note.

He smiled and got dressed. When he got into the kitchen Sirius was already there and did a double take at Harry's expression.

"Had a good night?" He asked.

Harry put the note down beside Sirius' coffee cup. "They fixed my dresser." He smiled. "That stupid drawer had been the worst part of my morning." He chuckled and grabbed a coffee for himself.

"Love that Weasley cheekiness." Sirius said proudly.

()()()

"Ginny." A voice called out from the fireplace of her flat on Thursday evening.

Ginny leaned her head back from the kitchen so she could see the fireplace. "Hey Luna! Give me a minute." She turned her burner to off and removed her pasta dish from the heat. "How are you?" She called out. "Come on through if you like."

There was a woosh from the other room and Luna walked into her kitchen, taking a seat at the two-seater table. "That smells good."

Ginny smiled and grabbed two bowls to serve up dinner. "What brings you here on this fine day?" Ginny picked up a bottle of wine and held it up to her, asking if she wanted any then poured two glasses.

"There is a Ministry Ball coming up this weekend." Luna said before digging into her dish.

"That's nice, you need to go shopping for an outfit?" Ginny asked settling into her seat. In reality, it wasn't nice. Those functions were stuffy and boring with bad food, but what else was she supposed to say about it.

Luna made a noise and shook her head 'no'.

"You need to convince Rolf to go with you?" Ginny teased. Luna and Rolf Scamander had a very casual romance going on. They'd met through her work in the Department for Regulation of Magical Creatures and seemed to spend a lot of time together when they were in the same country.

"He's off in Brunei at the moment."

Ginny's smile faltered. "What about Neville? You said you got on at school."

"He's already got a date."

"What about your dad! I bet he'd love to go." Ginny offered a little too optimistically.

"You know I can't bring daddy there. I've already asked Ron and my friend Selena who can't go." Luna looked up at her with head over her bowl.

She felt the pull of her relationship obligation. "So you've considered everyone, and asked everyone you could think of to go with you and they all are busy?" Luna nodded. "And you have to bring a plus one?"

Luna raised a single eyebrow at her.

Ginny had brought her along to two of her brothers weddings using the obligation card. It wasn't her fault that she'd just happened to break up with her boyfriends at the time two and three weeks before the weddings.

She gave in to the obligation. "Fine. When is it?"

"This Saturday." Luna smiled at her victoriously.

Ginny huffed. "Plenty of notice to find a gown then!"

"We'll pull out the dress you wore for Percy and Audrey's wedding and make a few alterations. That will work." She shrugged

()()()

Harry adjusted his tie to loosen it a bit and took another sip of his champagne.

It tasted awful, but it was all they were serving.

He kept getting pulled into these boring conversations and asked his opinion about things he had no idea about. He could have been at a Quidditch game with Sirius right then, instead he had this obligation gala to attend because he was the department poster boy.

With every passing smile and nod in his direction he was getting closer and closer to bailing. There was a pub just down the road from the entrance on Diagon Alley that had some good fish and chips. That would be better than whatever it was that was being passed around by the servers.

There were a few women here that were winking at him, but he wasn't nearly drunk enough to have the confidence to strike up a conversation with them.

For a while now he'd been wondering if there was more to life than this. Everyone else seemed happy and he was just stuck in this routine of trying to figure out how to get that kind of happy for himself.

None of these one-night stands were doing it for him, and he had to be pretty drunk in order to get the nerve to hit on a girl or get past his own embarrassment with his infamy. Now he was becoming infamous for another reason and he didn't like it.

"There you are." Gawain Robairds, his department head found him. "Come on. Just dance with some of the ladies and then you can go." He said. He could tell that that Harry didn't want to be there.

Harry wanted to roll his eyes, but if it meant he could leave before ten then he'd do it and try not to act like a petulant child about it.

"Harry, you know Amelia Bones, and this is her niece Susan." Gawain introduced him. "How would you like to take Susan for a spin around the dance floor?"

He plastered a tight polite smile to his face and held his hand out for her. She giggled and took it. Internally he groaned. She was wearing too much perfume, it always made him want to breathe through his mouth, but then it was like he was tasting it.

"I'm afraid I'm not a very good dancer." Harry apologized as they reached the other dancing couples. His eye caught on a flash of red hair to his left. A pretty young woman was dancing with a much older man. She scowled at her dance partner and Harry recalled an image of her doing the same thing to him, but couldn't place when or why. They moved out of his eye line and he turned back to his dance partner who was doing that thing with her eyelashes that was supposed to imply that she was innocent or interested in him or something. Looking up and sort of fluttering them.

They moved around the dance floor for the two minutes it took for the song to end and then he thanked her and turned around and found himself straight in front the scowling redhead he saw before. "Sorry." He caught her around the middle and froze with their bodies close and facing each other. She was even prettier up close.

"No harm done, still on my feet." She told him easily. He kept perfectly still with his arm around her trying to figure out why she was so familiar to him. As he stared into her brown eyes her expression turned quizzical. "You can let me go now."

"Right! Sorry." He pulled his arm away, but not completely. "Do you want to dance?"

"What?" She blinked at him.

"Do. Do you want to dance?" He held her hand a little tighter.

"Um. Okay." She answered slowly and let him lead. Reluctantly.

"Enjoying yourself?" He asked, hoping to start a conversation.

"Not particularly." She looked over to where her last dance partner was being led away by someone that may have been his wife. "I'm only here because my friend needed a plus one and no one else could make it." There was slight uptick to her lips at that.

"You must be a very good friend." He supplied.

She shrugged. "I did drag her to two of my family weddings, so I kind of owed her."

Her indifference to him was rather refreshing. "Look, you seem so familiar. I'm trying to place you." He admitted.

She gave him her full attention then. There was this humorous glint in her eyes and a smirk forming. "Not trying to figure out if I'm one of the many women you've taken home in the past few months, are you?"

She was teasing him. He knew she was teasing him, but his dirty laundry had been splashed over the cover of many magazines and the papers. "No." He said defeated. Could he do anything right?

"I didn't mean to upset you." She frowned.

"You didn't." He lied automatically.

She let out a single laugh. "That was very convincing." She joked, but he still couldn't manage a polite response. "Fine. You might recognize me because I told you off last week." She admitted.

"What?" he racked his brain trying to think of when this might have been. "When?" Or, more importantly. "Why?"

He spun her around once and held her a little closer to him, hoping she wouldn't mind or pull away. He liked the feel of her in his arms. Her expression told him that she noticed but didn't pull away, she was merely allowing it. "You stole my drink."

He halted their movements. "What? I stole your drink?"

"Right off the tray I was carrying." She mockingly scolded. "I can only assume you thought I was a waitress or something, but you stole my drink, I took it back and then when you noticed that I recognized you, you asked if that meant you could have it back."

His heart was beating faster. He had tried to pull his celebrity card on her? That was not an attractive thing to do. He had no memory of this, just the image of her angry face.

"I told you no and and to sober up, then we went our separate ways. You were fairly intoxicated as it was and being pulled along by some tall leggy thing." She dismissed.

He didn't want to dismiss it. "I am so sorry. I'm a bit of a mess right now."

"I gathered that."

She didn't look sad or sympathetic about it. Just that it was a statement of fact. He really should cut back on the drinking. It wasn't making him any happier, and it had only led to unsatisfactory one-night stands and his personal business smeared all over the tabloids. "I can do better." He said, mostly to himself. He studied her face once more and started dancing with her again. "Can I make it up to you?" He asked hopefully. "Get you a drink right now?"

She snorted. "All they have here is champagne, and I'd honestly rather drink straight from the toilet. Disgusting stuff. So glad my taxes are going to these awful events." She said sarcastically.

"The food sucks too." He agreed.

She groaned. "I know. And I always forget to pre-eat. All they have is those crackers with some sort of foam or something on it." She made a cat face.

He laughed at her reaction. "I feel the same way." He was tapped on the shoulder and turned to see the Minister of Magic.

"Sorry to interrupt." Kingsley told him. "I have a few people that would like to say hello to you."

"Oh." He was disappointed. He turned back to the woman in his arms. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." She leaned in slightly to whisper in his ear. "I need to leave and get real food and drink anyway."

He laughed and let Kingsley lead him away.

()()

Harry didn't have any more to drink that night and the next day he was feeling pretty good when he walked into the kitchen and found Sirius there. "Didn't you say that the renovations were supposed to start last week? Shouldn't they have done more than fix my dresser by now?" He asked grabbing a cup of coffee.

"They did. Starting at the top floor and working their way down. They've finished up two rooms already, they look amazing, want to see?" He hopped up from his seat excitedly and Harry chuckled at his exuberance following him out.

"You're in a really good mood." Harry pointed out.

"It's really nice having something to do right now. I've been spending time with the Weasley's while they work and just chatting with them about... whatever. They were the ones that suggested I go to the Quidditch match yesterday."

"Yeah. Sorry I missed it, would have rather gone to that." Except for one highlight from the gala, he thought to himself.

As they passed Harry's room Sirius pointed at it. "Anyone in there?"

"Ah, no." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I need to take a break from all that."

"Really?" Sirius spun around on the spot to face him.

Harry took a step back. "Uh. Yeah. I just think I've been going a little overboard, and it isn't. It just isn't feeling right."

Sirius' shoulders sagged in relief. "Oh good. I didn't want to say anything, but I was getting worried."

That really bugged Harry on some level. "Why didn't you say anything?" Sirius was his only parental figure, shouldn't he be chastising him for misbehaving or something?

"I just thought you were due a bit of fun, but it didn't really look like you were... enjoying having all that fun?" He said awkwardly.

Harry felt ashamed of how out of control he'd been getting. Not even remembering stealing a drink from a pretty girl and embarrassing himself over it a week later. He needed to stop and find something else to focus on. "I wasn't. I'm not."

Sirius put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I wasn't either, and it was pointed out to me recently that if I don't know how to start having fun, then how should you know?"

Harry hadn't thought about that. It was true that he didn't know how to start having fun and enjoying life. Even when he was doing his traveling, he was alone. He just kept trying new experiences and had a momentary rush of adrenaline, but then it would wear off. The most fun he had was when Sirius came and joined him for part of his States visit. "That's what the Quidditch match was all about?"

"Yeah." Sirius nodded. "Thought it would be a start. And it was fun. Remus and I had a good time, only got a few looks." He wasn't as plastered over the papers at the end of the war as Harry was, but he was still pretty well known.

"Next time. Hopefully there won't be some mandatory function I have to go to." Harry agreed. Sirius smiled at him. "Alright, let's see these rooms you're so happy about.

At the top of the stairs Sirius turned to him with his hand on the doorknob. "You ready?" He asked excitedly.

"Yes." Harry chuckled.

Sirius pushed open the door and Harry's jaw dropped. It was like stepping into a completely different house. The walls were painted white and deep red, the furniture was all whitewashed and plush with pillows and ornamental knobs on the wardrobe and the dresser, and it even matched the drawers on the nightstand. The curtains fit the room perfectly, and the king size bed had a shear canopy over it. It all looked so inviting and royal.

"I know, right?" Sirius beamed. "Lets go look at the other room." He hurried across the hall to what had been his brother Regulus' room. Not anymore. It was now an area for entertaining, or relaxing.

"It kind of feels like you should be doing yoga in here." Harry commented after standing in the center of the room a moment. The walls were a soft green color and there was a large sofa that was curved around that entire corner of the room, and there were two kind of circular armchairs across from it.

"That's the wall treatments." Sirius told him. "They have this special way of making the paint express a feeling or something. Like the color leaves an impression on the room."

"That's amazing." Harry went to the wall and put his hand against it. It made him feel so relaxed. He felt like this room would be perfect for one on one conversations at the end of the day. He turned to Sirius, who was looking out the window. Even the window's looked brighter. "How long until they get to my room?" He asked, understanding now why Sirius had been so giddy about it.

Sirius laughed. "Not a while yet pup." He pulled him in for a one-armed hug.

Harry leaned into the hug. It had been a long time since Sirius had called him pup, and he liked it. "Why don't I go get us some fresh coffee and we can sit in here with it?"

"That sounds good. Careful not to drip any on the floor though, they'll kill me if I spill something on that rug so quickly."

It took another week for the top floor to be done. Once it was, it turned into Sirius and Harry's little Oasis. They would spend the evening in the green sitting room at the end of the day talking, or just sitting in each others presence.

Harry had not had a drop to drink of alcohol that week, and he felt better for it. Sirius mentioned something about a Quidditch League or getting out into the Muggle world for something or other on the weekend. It sounded like a good idea. Much better than spending his Saturday in bed like he normally did.

On Saturday the two of them went to Diagon Alley to check out a few shops. Sirius was keen to go into one of the art shops to see about getting some new pieces for their place, but after five minutes it all looked the same to Harry, so he left the shop to wander down the alley a bit. He was looking through the Quality Quidditch display when something ran into his leg.

"Sorry." A little voice sniffled.

He looked down and saw a little strawberry blonde girl in tears. "That's okay. You don't have to cry about it!" He worried.

"I'm lost." She looked up at him. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

"That's smart." He reached in his pocket and pulled out his Auror badge and knelt down to show her. "But I work with the Auror's. My name's Harry. Will you let me help you find your parents?"

She worried her lip and peered at him cautiously.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Victoire." She whispered.

"That's a pretty name." She smiled at him. "How about I lift you up on my shoulder and you can take a look and see if you can see them in the crowd?"

Her eyes lit up at that. "Okay! I would be really big then!"

Harry chuckled. "Yes, you will." He picked her up and settled her on one shoulder. "Do you see them anywhere?"

"No." She said worried. "AGONY!" She screamed suddenly.

He nearly dropped her in surprise.

"Victoire!" He heard someone call back. "Excuse me, Sorry." The voice was coming closer.

Harry settled her back down just as the person belonging to the voice came upon them. He was startled to see it was the woman from the ministry ball. She seemed as surprised to see him as he was her. She looked much more natural and relaxed today than she had been the last time he'd seen her. She had fitted jeans and a loose top on that was tucked in at one side. Her hair was down, and she looked ravishing.

The little girl rushed to her and hugged her around the middle. "What?" She looked down at the girl hugging her and knelt down. "What are you doing here alone? Where are your mum and dad?"

Harry felt a ridiculous sense of relief to know that she wasn't actually the girls mother. Not that it mattered.

"I got lost. But it's okay that I talked to that stranger, because he's an Auror." She looked back to him and gave him an endearing smile.

"She told me she wasn't allowed to talk to strangers." He offered. "I showed her my badge and just offered to give her a better vantage point."

"Agony. Mum and daddy are going to be mad at me." Victoire cried.

She scooped the little girl up into her arms and twirled one of her pigtails in her fingers. "Don't worry sweet heart. We'll find them and they will just be relieved to see you again." She gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"He helped." Victoire said looking at him. She was adorable.

"Well, why don't you say thank-you to the nice man?" She goaded.

Harry chuckled as she held her little arms out for a hug. He leaned in and let her wrap her arms around his neck, then she gave him a kiss to the cheek and let go. "Anytime little one."

"Agony. You too!" She insisted.

He got a brilliant smile from 'Agony' before she humored the little girl by quickly wrapped her free arm around him then and gave him a swift kiss to the cheek and pulled back. "Thank you. I'd better go track down my brother and his wife now. They'll be frantic."

She shifted the girl a bit and got her to wave goodbye to him before they disappeared into the crowd. He watched them in between the pedestrians as they made their way down the alley.

That was three weekends in a row that he'd encountered her. After meeting her at the ministry ball she would pop into his head every now and then. While at work through the week he would turn his head to look every time there was a redhead in his peripheral vision, feeling a little disappointed when it wasn't her.

Now this was the third time, and she'd kissed him on the cheek. He smiled thinking about how she hadn't hesitated to do as her niece requested in thanking him. She smelled so nice, and her smile was so lovely.

"See anything you're interested in?" Sirius popped up by his side.

'Yeah' was his initial reaction, but he looked back through the window of the storefront beside him. "No, just browsing." He smiled and they kept making their way back towards the Leaky Cauldron. "You? Any art calling out to you?"

"Some stuff didn't look bad, but I'd want to consult with George before making a decision."

"George?" Harry kept looking back down towards Gringotts behind them, hoping to catch another glimpse of her.

"Yeah. George is one of the renovators." Sirius drawled out, clearly realizing Harry wasn't listening.

"Right, yeah. So, they're onto the third floor next?" The hallway on the fourth was the last bit not finished, but he supposed that would be the last thing overall. Sirius' room was on the third floor and he was going to be moving into the guest room on the fourth and was quite happy about it. He'd apparently told them that he was thinking of making the move permanent, but they'd told him to just wait until he saw his room when they were done with it, and he was more excited about that now.

"Yep. I love how they changed up the layout, so the bedrooms aren't on top of each other. You know they're going to knock down a wall between the two second floor guest rooms? Make it one big room." Sirius was starting to prattle on and on about them again.

It was good that he had something to look forward to every week.

"Have you ever heard of Agony as a girls name?" Harry cut in.

"Agony?" Sirius asked quizzically. "I've heard of Briony, and Agatha. Not Agony though. Why?"

"Just, overheard someone being called that, thought it was odd." He said flippantly.

Sirius shrugged. "Maybe it was a nickname. She could be just a real pain in the ass."

Harry seriously doubted that.

()()()

It was the Wednesday of the third week that Harry was in the house at the same time as her and the twins for the first time.

She'd found it amusing that she'd run into him three weekends in a row, each time he seemed to have no idea who she was. His beautiful green eyes staring at her and that sexy wild hair of his that he ruffled every time he was at a loss for words.

She was attracted to him for sure. She had been for as long as she could remember. But he was a player, and she didn't need to get her feelings hurt by any more boys. She was not the kind of girl that was okay with a one off either. If she wanted a quickie she could take care of her needs herself.

She did want a proper relationship, like what her parents had, and what Bill and Fleur had. She'd told Sirius that she wasn't looking for Mr. Right, but it would be nice to have someone to come home to or someone to make her dinner once in a while, or take her out.

Her last boyfriend had essentially toyed with her emotions, she didn't know if he could have even been considered her boyfriend, that's how shaky their relationship had been. Luna was able to have a casual dalliance with Rolf, but Ginny wanted commitment.

She'd been working on repairing the nosing on the stairway from the third floor to the fourth when Harry had come out from his room a floor and a half below.

Sirius had been on his way up and intercepted him. "Oh. Harry. Thought you'd already left for the day."

"No, going in mid-morning. They sent me an Owl last night. I'll be working later this evening."

Ginny didn't stop filling in the cracks in the wood while they chatted. She was sure she could feel their eyes on her though. She was in her tan unisex coveralls again with her hair pulled up in the cap and with her back to them.

"Going to grab breakfast and go to the gym I think." Harry told him.

"No overnight guests again?" Sirius sounded hesitant about that.

Harry's response was muted, but Ginny strained her ears to hear it, having to remember to carry on with her task as well so as to not look like she was eavesdropping. "I told you. I'm done with all that. It just never felt right."

A stupid swooping sensation caught up in her belly at that. He wasn't sleeping around anymore? He'd never thought it felt right! Maybe he wasn't such a player after all. She grew a little frustrated at how happy that made her. He didn't stop because of her, and he wasn't going to discover her there and fall madly in love with her. There was no reason she should be happy about him making that life choice, other than to be happy that he seemed happier than he had been.

"Need help in here." Fred called out from the far corner room. She left her supplies where they were and turned to go down the stairs. Harry and Sirius must have ducked back from the stairs to have their little conversation, not realizing how much their voices carried through this house.

She went into the far room that Fred called from, they were pulling up a carpet. This could have been done magically, but that could damage the floor underneath, so they always did it by hand.

()()()

Saturday morning Harry decided to go to Hogsmeade. There were a few Quidditch Leagues of every age and skill level that practiced up there every Saturday. He'd heard about it from one of his co-workers and wanted to check it out, thinking that maybe he could check out their skill level and see where he might fall in.

The kids had the pitch first thing in the morning though. He saw them clumsily mount their brooms and kick off, he watched for a moment before turning down towards the village to see about getting a coffee. He'd ask about the different league times closer to the hour mark, which was in about twenty minutes.

The first shop he came across was a deli and he went in. The place wasn't busy at all, but he smelled the fresh coffee and baked goods. He took in a big whiff and felt warmth in his belly just from that.

"Heyya. What can I get for you?" Asked the man behind the counter. He had his back turned when Harry walked in but pivoted around with a tray of croissants and put them in the display before looking up. "Oh! You're Harry Potter!"

Harry cringed, waiting for the slew of inappropriate questions.

"My siblings are doing the renovation on your house. How do you like it so far?"

"Oh!" Harry beamed. "You must be a Weasley then!" He felt so relieved. And he was kicking himself for not realizing. Sirius had said that they had a brother with a deli in Hogsmeade too. "I love it, can't wait for them to finish." He replied sincerely. "Fantastic workmanship. The place was horrible before."

"So I've heard. Surprised them when they found out you didn't want an NDA." He told him easily. "Coffee? What do you take?"

"Uh, yeah. Cream and sugar please. And I'll take one of those treacle tarts too. Heard raves about them." He pointed out the tart in the display case. Sirius was very nearly singing songs about them in the evenings. "I didn't know about any NDA, but it doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing, I get splashed all over the tabloids anyways." Harry tried to shrug it off. Now that he wasn't out every other night there was speculation going around about who had finally 'tamed the wild beast'.

"What brings you all the way up here this early on a Saturday? Heading up to the school?" He handed over the mug of coffee and went for a plate for the tart.

"Thinking of joining a Quidditch League actually. Have no idea what my skill level is though, so I was going to check out the other teams to see where I might fall in." He accepted the tart and the guy gestured to the seat at the counter.

"Well, it's just the kids playing this early. The adult leagues start up after lunch. That's why we're closed from three to four-thirty on Saturdays. I'm in the league myself. Ron" He held out his hand.

Harry took it gratefully. "Nice to meet you."

"Same. Do you get a chance to do much flying? What position do you reckon your wanting?"

They chatted casually about the sport and Ron offered him some tips about when and where he could practice closer to home as well and gave him the times of the older league practices and what each of the levels were called. Harry picked up a few extra of the treacle tarts, which he learned were made by the Weasley Matriarch, for he and Sirius to eat after tea and left as the kids practice was ending which had the deli quickly picking up business with the parents.

Harry headed back towards the pitch to see some of the older kids had started their practice and were learning more advanced tricks. He took a seat in the stand to observe for a bit and almost dropped his take-away cup when he realized one of the coaches was _her_.

Four weekends in a row, four completely different locations and reasons, and he kept coming across her.

She was wearing a pale blue jersey that read 'Coach' on the back and showing a group of six how to do a barrel roll. She kept whistling and clapping her praise when they made it through an attempt and pumped two fists in the air when one of them demonstrated it perfectly.

After a few minutes she got a new rotation of kids and performed the move again for them, training them to do it as well. She gave the kids all high fives and hugged one of them. She looked like she was really enjoying herself.

She must have felt his eyes on her because she looked over to near where he was and searched the stand until her eyes landed on him and she paused, staring.

He gave her a shy smile and a pathetic wave. Being here like this now, he worried that he might come across as a stalker sitting up here and watching her. He didn't even have a kid, he was just watching them practice.

That was so creepy.

But if he got up and left now it would look like he just got caught doing something wrong and possibly look even worse.

She said something to her group of kids and flew over to him. He sucked in a breath and stood up to stand at the edge and greet her.

"Hi." He said lamely.

"Hello yourself." She smiled. "What brings you here this early on a Saturday?"

"Uh. Coffee?" He held up his cup jokingly.

She snickered. "Well, they do have the best. And always fresh. But really. Why are you watching a kids Quidditch practice?"

"Yeah." He said ashamed. "I may have only just realized how creepy this might be, but I actually didn't know what time the adults played. I was looking to watch and maybe find out my skill level." Her eyebrows went up in surprise. "Just trying to not be a mess anymore." He told her honestly.

A slow and soft smile came to her face. There was this look in her eyes that told her she very much approved of his efforts, but she said nothing about it. She licked her lips and looked back to where her group were doing the rolls. She needed to get back to them. She turned back to him. "Come back around one. That's when the older leagues start up." She told him. "Sorry. I have to get back." She gave him one more smile before heading back down to the kids.

Then he was kicking himself because he didn't get her name again. He'd heard some very odd names throughout the magical world, but Agony had not been one of them, and he was sure it was just some kind of nickname or toddler babble.

He walked down the steps from the stands and thought over everything he did know about her. She had a niece named Victoire, she had a brother, she didn't like champagne, and she coached little league Quidditch. And she was beautiful in dress or a Quidditch jersey, whenever she licked her lips they would get this enticing sheen to them and look subtly fuller, and when she scowled there was this adorable little 'v' shape in between her eyebrows.

He really liked her. This was the first time he'd ever really liked anyone and thinking about her was making his hands tingle slightly with excitement.

At the bottom of the stairs he hesitated. Torn between wanting to stay and maybe talk to her after their practice or leave and come back later when she might be playing the game herself.

In the end he left, hoping that she'd be in one of the recreational leagues later that day.


	2. Month Two

**Carpentry- Month Two**

Ginny let out a large groan as she stood up and raised her hands above her head in a stretch. She'd been bent over sanding down the corners of the floor in Sirius' Master bedroom for over an hour and hadn't felt how much her body was protesting until she tried to stand up again.

Once stretched as high up as she could go she got down to lay on the floor, star fishing and trying to work out her kinks.

"You alright there?" Fred stood over her.

"I'm getting old Fred! Falling apart before my time." She dramatized. "I want my tombstone to read 'Death by Chocolate'. Don't let anyone know it was because my body just got tired of me." She draped an arm over her eyes.

Fred snickered and lay down on the floor beside her. "How's the floor coming along?"

"Nearly done. The trimming in this room is a real bitch. I'm glad the fireplace is marble though. Means less sanding for me." They had a spell to deal with the main sand blasting job on the floors, but the little areas along the wall needed more TLC and were done by hand. Two of the upstairs rooms had ornate buttresses around them that were wooden. Wooden with a fire-repellent charm on them, which made it even harder.

"Do you need to start getting regular massages?" Fred poked her side.

"Ow, gerroff." She kicked out. "Decent suggestion though." She admitted. It'd be nice to have someone at home that could rub her back in the evenings rather than just taking a long hot soak. It would be nice if that back rub ended in bed with a particular green-eyed man that kept showing up where she was on the weekends, but she could settle for paying a professional to work out her kinks.

Harry Potter showing up at the kids practice on Saturday had thrown her. Ron had told her later that he'd been into the deli too and chatted with him about the Quidditch Leagues and practice spots around England. He also told her how Harry had been really happy about the renovations thus far as well, that really pleased her.

"What, is it slack-off o'clock already?" George asked standing over the two of them.

"Yes." Fred said.

"Join us, won't you?" Ginny offered.

He shrugged and went around to the other side of them, laying down with his head beside theirs. "What do we think of this ceiling?"

"We've been over the ceiling idea." Fred told him, his eyes were still closed.

"Yeah, but wouldn't it be neat to replicate the night sky too? We have the calm blue that will be going on the wall, but when the lights are extinguished it'll be dark enough in here. We can charm them to move gradually."

Ginny closed her eyes and visualized that. "That would be really neat." She smiled. "I think Sirius would really love it too."

"What would I love?" Sirius was now standing at the door.

"To join us down here." Fred scooted closer to Ginny.

Sirius really was the good-natured type, he came over and lay down with the three of them. "What are we doing?" He stage whispered.

"Meditating."

"Visualizing."

"Taking a nap."

They all answered at the same time and Sirius laughed.

"Hey George?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah?"

"I'm with you." She told him. "Two to one Fred." She nudged him with her foot.

Fred groaned. Everyone was silent for a few moments. "Yeah. He'll love it." He agreed.

()()()

Sirius pounced on Harry on Friday when he got home. They were going over to Remus and Tonks for dinner and all Harry wanted to do was shower and change. He'd been running some drills with the Junior Recruits and was exhausted.

"Come on! You have to see. It's wonderful!" He pushed Harry along ahead of him up the stairs.

"Why are you pushing me? I need a shower." Harry protested.

"Shower later. See this now, it's so great!" Sirius nudged him up to the third floor and into his bedroom.

"Yeah, Sirius, I saw it yesterday. It is great." Harry said confused. The room was a light blue and the closet had been knocked out altogether. His bed was now six feet forward from the wall with a floor to ceiling headboard that looked like the wall, but actually held the closet portion of the room behind it. They'd marveled over the fun idea of the walk-through closet last night when he'd gotten home.

"You didn't see everything last night. Go lay on the bed, that's the best place to see it from." He pointed over to the bed and went to the window, waiting for him to lay down.

Harry humored him and lay down, looking up at the ceiling. Sirius closed the blinds, completely blocking out the light and gradually he saw the stars on the ceiling come to life. "Oh! That's really neat!" He'd seen the glow in the dark stars that the Muggles had, but those one's you could still see in the day too, these one's were completely invisible to the eye in the light.

Sirius came over and lay down on the bed opposite the way he was. "They move too! I hadn't noticed right away. When I first saw them last night I thought it was great, but they move! And look." Harry made out that he was pointing to the walls. "It might take a moment for your eyes to adjust."

Harry looked at the walls and as he adjusted to the darkness he made out that there were trees and grassy hills that were painted all around the perimeter of the room, and they were swaying slightly as though in the breeze. "Oh wow!" He breathed out.

"I know!" Sirius sounded that he might be close to tears. "It's so amazing! I nearly kissed them all this morning when they came in!"

Harry snorted. "I bet they would have loved that!"

"Hey, if I was a bit younger I'd take a shot with Ginny. That girl is quite the looker, and she's got a great attitude."

"There's a girl? I thought it was brothers." Harry thought back over what he'd been told about them. The only one he'd seen was the guy working on the stairs, and only from the back.

"Two brothers, Fred and George, and their sister, Ginny. She's the one that fixed up your dresser drawer, the carpenter."

"Huh. Big family. They have another brother too, runs a deli in Hogsmeade."

"There's seven of them total." Sirius told him. "Largest wizarding family I've heard of. Industrious lot. The eldest is a curse breaker, and then there's the dragon tamer, then there's one that works at the Ministry and helps my three out with their permits and such."

"My three." Harry teased, but actually felt rather envious of his godfathers growing relationship with this family. "You are really taken with them, aren't you?"

"I've gone over all of the plans they had for the house. I knew what they had intended for this room. They know my story, and they did this for me, so I could sleep under the stars, feeling like I'm free. Bloody right I'm taken with them."

It really was amazing, even as they lay there looking up Harry could see a subtle shift of the constellations and a shooting star. None of the rooms thus far had the same feel or aesthetic, he was eager to see how his room would look once they were done.

Eventually they left the room and got ready to head out. Sirius spent the evening talking almost non-stop about the renovations while they were at dinner.

It turned out that Tonks actually knew the second eldest Weasley son pretty well and had worked with some of the others in underground efforts to hide Muggleborns when the war reached its ugliest point, then with the rebuilding effort after. Harry sat back and listened to the three carry on, picturing what it would have been like to grow up in such a big family with so many others his age. It must have been nice, and they all sounded like they got along really well. He knew that Remus and Tonks were both only children. Sirius was the only one with a sibling, though they hadn't gotten on.

The next morning Harry went to Hogsmeade to try and get to the pitch as the older children were finishing up their practice. He was only mildly embarrassed about the effort he was putting in to see her again, but she wasn't there that day.

Disappointed, he turned and went down to the deli, hoping that maybe business would be a little slow and maybe he and Ron could have another chat. He saw him play Quidditch the week before and he was a decent keeper, but his mystery girl hadn't been on any of the teams he'd seen.

Harry didn't think he was good enough to play on the leagues he'd seen. They all seemed so much more experienced than him, and it wasn't like he had a group of people he could call upon to help him train or anything, but Ron had sounded like he knew the ins and outs of learning Quidditch.

"Hey! You came back." Ron grinned at him. The shop had a few patrons sitting down, and there was an older woman working alongside him today. She had the same red hair as he did and was wiping down the counter. "Coffee and treacle tart again?"

"Yeah. That'd be great."

As he drank his coffee and ate his treat, he learned that the woman was Ron's mother, she normally baked through out the week and then came in on Mondays, but would pop in to help Ron out here and there during the week as well. She was very pleased to hear that Harry was appreciating her children's work in his house and flushed with pleasure when he praised her treacle tart as well.

Upon overhearing that Harry was wanting to join a Quidditch League but didn't have enough experience for a proper league she insisted that Ron take him to 'The Burrow' and show him a few things on their makeshift pitch. Harry didn't want to impose, or make Ron feel obligated, but Ron was keen on the idea. They agreed that Harry would meet up with him after he closed up shop around 6 that evening and side-along him over to his childhood home.

()()

Never in his life had Harry seen a house like the one he looked at from the Apparation Point on the hill overlooking the Burrow. It was uneven layer upon uneven layer, with a chimney on each. It was marvelous. Harry actually let out a laugh of delight when he saw it.

Ron grinned at his reaction. "You should see what Gin and the twins have done with the inside. We were their first major undertaking."

"I can only imagine. Sirius nearly cried he was so happy with what they'd done to his room."

"I was so relieved when they'd decided to do my room too." Ron told him. "I'd been impressed with what they'd done with their own, but it was the subtle things that really made it over the top. The paint, the _silencing charms_." He added that last one importantly.

Harry snickered. Besides having so many other people in the house, there were certainly some things teenage boys couldn't help getting up to when alone in their rooms at night, and a silencing charm would be a load off the mind at those times.

Ron showed him down to their pitch and admired his Firebolt for a bit before grabbing a Quaffel from the broom cupboard and showing him a few passes. They stayed up there until getting on to eight then called it quits in the fading light.

"Want to grab a pint? There's this girl that hangs out at a pub near me and I've been trying to get her to bite for a while. Hoping she'll be there tonight."

Harry hesitated. "I'm trying to not, um. I've been cutting out alcohol the past while." He really wanted to find healthy ways to boost his spirits and cutting out alcohol all together was one of the things that was a no brainer on his road to doing that.

Ron looked surprised a moment, the shrugged a shoulder. "They do great fish and chips too."

Harry smiled and nodded and they apparated back to Ron's deli.

The pub was nice and warm compared to outside. It was busy and had a cozy feel to it, with an excitable atmosphere. Early in the evening as it was there was already a group of men carrying on singing some kind of ode to a woman's stockings, if he was hearing that right.

"There she is." Ron pointed over to a woman at the bar with bushy brown hair.

"Is she always here?" Harry thought it odd that Ron would expect her to be here, not really knowing her, just having a fancy for her.

"She lives in the flat above the pub." He explained. "Says she's a lousy cook and their food is good, price is reasonable."

Some people between them and she shifted slightly and Harry's heart caught in his throat.

She was here. His mystery girl. Talking to Ron's girl. Even from across the room he could see her eyes twinkling with delight and her gorgeous red hair shining in the candlelight. This had to be a sign. Five times in as many weekends.

And he was finding out her name, damnit.

Suddenly very nervous he thought perhaps a pint might help calm him down but fought against the urge.

"Oh! She's with Eloise and my sister!" Ron exclaimed happily pointing.

Harry hadn't noticed the other girl with them. She too was a red head, same coloring as Ron. That must be the famous Ginny. Which meant that his girl was Eloise.

How in the hell did one get 'Agony' from 'Eloise?', he wondered.

"Uh, so. Using your sister as an 'in'?" Harry asked and Ron gave him an eyebrow waggle in response. "Maybe she can introduce me to Eloise as well." He asked hopefully.

Ron turned and grinned at him and they made their way over to them. Finally! Finally he was going to get the chance to speak to her properly and find out if this was all just in his head.

And of course, before they even made it half way to them the two red headed girls got up to head towards the back of the pub. His shoulders slumped in disappointment, but at least this would give him some more time to psych himself up and figure out what to talk to her about.

"Hi Hermione." Ron greeted his girl loudly and slid into the seat Eloise had been occupying.

Harry took up in the seat that Ron's sister had been using and signaled the barman. "Hello." He greeted Hermione and held out his hand. "I'm Harry."

"Oh!" Hermione looked a little startled, whether at their abrupt entrance into her space, or the fact that he was 'Harry Potter' he wasn't sure. "Ginny was just talking about you!" She exclaimed.

Huh, neither then. Although he felt a little violated that someone privy to his personal space was going around talking about it. Sirius may have trusted this girl, but he didn't know her.

"Well, not you exactly." She clarified, probably sensing his building resentment. "More about some of the design concepts for your home. She's quite excited with the project."

Harry relaxed. So, she wasn't talking about every item she'd come across while going through his underwear drawer. That was a relief. "We're quite thrilled with how it is coming along as well." He smiled. "How do you know those two?" He'd heard enough about Ginny from Sirius, and she sounded like a great girl from everything Sirius had said, but he wanted to know more about Eloise.

"Well I work with Eloise a bit at the Ministry. She and Ginny have come to know each other because of all the permits and licenses they need for their projects. And I know Eloise from Hogwarts. We were in the same year."

"Wish I had gone to Hogwarts." Ron sighed. "Sounded like a great place. Not that I'd have needed that kind of education to carry on with my business." He shrugged.

"Just think, if you had gone there then you might not have opened your shop, and where would I get those fabulous sandwiches from?" Hermione smiled and put a hand over his.

"Well, I still would have been making you sandwiches, but in the comfort of your kitchen. Or bringing them to you in bed." He lowered his voice.

Hermione blushed, but gave him a pleased smile. Her eyes then flickered over his shoulder. "Oh no."

"What?" Ron turned around. "Urgh. Michael Corner's here? Doesn't he live near Diagon Alley? What would bring him all the way up to Scotland for a pub night?"

"Well." Harry interjected. "I live in London, and I'm here." He offered. "What's wrong with him?" He saw the man they seemed less than happy to have at the pub. He looked alright. Not like some snob, perhaps a little cocky, but there was nothing terribly wrong with that. The man had his eyes trained on the door to the ladies toilets. That was creepy.

It was when Eloise and Ginny came out that Harry realized what the problem might be. Michael went over to Eloise, and Harry felt a weight drop in his stomach.

"That's what's wrong with him." Ron pointed out, sounding rather irritated. "He's an ex of hers. Prat. He's no good, and she was really ticked with herself after they split for not seeing it. Now it looks like he wants another chance."

Harry watched avidly while Michael started talking to Eloise. Ginny leaned over and whispered something to her. Eloise simply nodded before Ginny left them be and came over and took the seat beside Harry.

"Hi Ron." She smiled at her brother before turning to Harry. "Pleased to finally meet you." She beamed and held out her hand.

He shook her hand and nodded, his eyes flickering between Michael and Eloise. "Yeah, nice to meet you too. Rather crazy we haven't met before, but I've heard good things." He said distractedly and missed her confused expression. Eloise was scowling again, that made Harry smile. He loved that scowl.

The smile quickly dropped off of his face when he saw them turn and head for the exit. She wasn't possibly leaving with her ex, was she? "Uh. Be right back." He said and headed towards the other exit of the pub. It was a split-second decision to not follow them directly, but to walk around the building to where they hopefully would be if they hadn't apparated away. His reasoning for following them he hadn't quite formulated in his head yet though.

He stepped back into the cold night air and went around to the side of the pub where the other exit would have led.

"Come on. You know we were good together." He heard a male voice, probably Michael, say.

"Did you get hit by a Confundus recently, or are you really that deluded? We were terrible! I've no need or want of experiencing any part of that relationship for any length of time ever again." She replied.

That was definitely her. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. And she was firmly standing her ground against Michael. Harry grinned.

"You know I can give it to you good." Michael told her huskily.

She snorted. "Not in my experience. You get some training from a succubus or something in the last six months?"

"Hey!"

"Ow. Michael, let me go."

Harry came into view of them properly and saw that he had her pushed up against the wall, his hands gripping her upper arms to hold her in place.

"You don't have to be such a bitch." Michael snarled.

Harry's blood was boiling and he grabbed his wand, going over every painful and non-lethal spell he could think of. Hell, he was going over the lethal one's too.

"Last warning Michael." She said angrily.

Michael laughed haughtily. "Or what?" He asked, not removing his hands from her.

"Or this." Harry expected her to have lifted her knee quickly to get him in the jewels, but no. She launched her head forward and cracked him in the nose with her forehead. Blood shot out of Michael's nose and he fell to the ground clutching his face.

"Ah! You crazy bitch!" Michael cried and reached for his wand.

"Expelliamus." Harry disarmed him quickly and caught the wand as it flew through the air.

The two of them turned to him in surprise. She was swaying slightly and kept one hand on the wall.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Michael asked. There were tears in his eyes from the pain of a broken nose.

"Harry Potter." Harry told him dangerously and took a small amount of pleasure in the shock and slight fear showing in Michael's face. He pointed his wand at him. "Episky." A crack resonated off the walls as Michael's nose realigned.

"Oh Fuck!" He cried out.

Harry tossed his wand to the ground beside him. "Go clean yourself up. Hopefully now you've learned that when a lady says 'no' it means 'no'."

Harry gently took her arm, slightly alarmed at the dazed look on her face, and led her out towards the street. "Are you alright?" He asked. Under the street light he could see her properly and used his sleeve to wipe the few drops of Michael's blood off her face.

"That really fucking hurt." She put a hand to her forehead and winced.

"It was really fucking brilliant, if that helps any." He said, relieved when she chuckled, but then she swayed again and he put his hands on her hips to steady her. "Maybe you should see a healer." He suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. Head butting on top of a few pints probably wasn't the best idea." She removed her hand from her forehead and looked up at him, taking a small step towards him. She stared into his eyes, he thought she had the most beautiful brown eyes he'd ever seen. "Your eyes are amazing." She told him in a daze.

He wanted to echo that back to her. She had the most beautiful everything. Her eyes, her hair, her lips. Her eyes slipped closed. Harry's heart beat a little faster, taking that as a sign that she would let him kiss her. That she was feeling this moment the same way he was. Like everything they'd ever done before was all just leading them here so they could share a first kiss right then.

Then she turned her head and threw up.

"Oh shit." He instinctively stepped away from the mess. "Yeah. Okay, let's get you to a healer." He pulled back her hair until she was done and banished the sick that had gotten on her shoes.

Apparently that magical romantic moment had all just been in his head.

He could either find a Floo, or Apparate her to St. Mungo's. Apparating was the lesser of two evils.

She moaned in pain as they arrived in the entryway of the hospital and held her forehead.

Gently as he could he guided her to a chair and went to the desk. "She's got what is possibly a concussion." He explained what happened to the triage nurse, who handed him an intake form for them to fill out. He brought it back over to her. "Think you can manage to fill this out?" He asked.

"Yeah." She groaned quietly and took the form, looking at it with only one eye open. "Um, think you can get me a cool flannel or something?" She asked hopefully, holding the form with one hand and her forehead with the other.

"Yes. Of course." He hurried off back to the nurses station. Looking back at her while he waited he couldn't believe this situation. This was not an ideal way to get to know her, but he so admired her. She certainly had the air about her that told everyone she wouldn't take any crap from them. That Michael bloke should have known better and never have laid his hands on her. Whatever had convinced her to date that tosser in the first place, she'd obviously learned a lesson or two from it.

The nurse gave him the flannel and he started back towards her, just as a man took up in the seat beside her. Harry saw him saying something to her before he put his hand under her chin gently so she would turn her head to him, she winced at the movement.

"Hey." Harry intruded.

The man looked affronted by Harry's sudden appearance. "Hey yourself. Can I help you?"

"Percy. This is Harry. He was helping me." She explained accepting the flannel from him and pressing it to her forehead. "Harry. This is my brother." She handed her brother her intake form. "Perce, can you give this back to the nurses?"

"Of course. Sorry if I came across as rude." He said to Harry. "Just a little worried at the moment." Percy nodded at him before carrying the forms back to the desk.

"His wife is pregnant, and a hypochondriac." She said once her brother was out of earshot and gave a pained laugh. "They're here pretty often."

"So. Did you want me to wait with you?" He asked, taking up the seat next to her, unsure what to do. It wasn't like they really knew each other.

"No." She smiled sweetly at him. "Thank you for all of your help, but-"

"The nurse has a bed ready for you." Percy came back and took her arm to help her out of the chair.

It looked like she was accepting the help begrudgingly, she didn't seem too thrilled with having to rely on someone else for balance. "Thank you Harry." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "I'm sure I'll see you around."

As her brother guided her away all he could think is that he certainly hoped he would see her soon.

Now at least he knew she worked at the Ministry and her name was Eloise.

Monday morning he was determined that he was going to track her down and ask her to dinner. Or at least lunch.

()()()

"Oh." That was all that Ginny could say as the sixth page of the Daily Prophet was put before her by her brothers on Monday morning. In it there was a picture of her on the streets of Hogsmeade with the one and only Harry Potter. According to the photo she was his latest conquest, and from the way their photo selves were staring into each other's eyes looking all star-struck and sappy, it did look incriminating.

She'd told the twins about her encounter with Michael and how it led to a visit to St. Mungo's. But she may have left out the part about who escorted her there. It was bad enough that Percy knew about it.

The healers had fixed her up quickly. A quick spell and one potion and her concussion was an issue no more. Harry had left by the time she'd finished up, not that she expected him to wait around. He barely knew her after all. She'd gone back to the pub and Harry wasn't there either. She found her friends and Ron and explained what happened. The three of them managed to stop Ron from going over and pummeling Michael, who quickly left after her return.

"Oh?" Fred asked.

"Oh. That's all you have to say?" George persisted.

"Look. He just helped me get to St. Mungo's safely, okay? What this." She pointed at the picture. "Doesn't show is that a second later I was throwing up from a concussion. I assure you, there isn't anything nefarious or clandestine about what happened."

"Mmhmm." George didn't believe her.

"If you say so." Fred also didn't seem to take her at her word.

She sighed, knowing it wasn't worth the fight. She'd had bad taste in boyfriends, she got it. They'd never liked the only two boys she'd brought by the Burrow, and they'd turned out to be right not to like them. They may not have known Harry, and she didn't either, but she was the one to find a girls bra on his floor the first day there, and judging from her bra size it had been a different girl in his room only a few days later that she'd stumbled upon. He got around and she knew that, thus he wasn't good enough for her according to them.

But he kept popping up where ever she was. The Ministry event was one thing, everybody was there. Diagon Alley, that too, it was a busy Sunday morning and the street was loaded with people. The Quidditch pitch... well, he'd explained that one to her. And this past Saturday he'd been out with Ron.

That bit had been odd.

Ron told her about how he'd come into the deli early that day and their mum intervened which led the two of them to tossing a Quaffel around at the Burrow. Then they wanted to grab a drink after.

No, that was still weird.

She'd been grateful he'd stepped in when he did in her altercation. She certainly didn't appreciate being called a bitch twice by her ex. That coupled with Michael's audacity to think she'd have a one off with him. He couldn't satisfy her the entire time they'd gone out, the selfish bastard, why on heaven and earth would he think he'd pull that off months later?

Ignoring the twins she picked up a sledgehammer and started swinging it at the wall.

Today was a good day for working on demolition. She had a lot of frustration still coursing through her, and each swing and satisfying crunch was lifting her spirits.

Later than usual Sirius came to check in on them. He'd been over the moon about what they'd done to his room and hugged each of them. That was the kind of reaction they loved getting, and they'd hoped it would be the reaction they'd get from him. After being stuck in Azkaban and then this depressing hole of a house, as it had been, he deserved a room that reflected both freedom and security. If they could have added some of the sounds of quietly chirping insects and rustling leaves they would have done that too.

Perhaps that was a charm they could work on later.

Today however, now that she knew what was on page six of the Prophet she didn't want to make anything awkward. So, she was going to pretend that she knew nothing of it and cast a glance to each of the twins to try and relay that they behave the same way. That seemed like a healthy way to deal with it.

"Everybody have a nice weekend?" Sirius asked to room.

"Aye." The twins said in unison.

"Same old, same old." Ginny said and swallowed before giving him a tight smile and returning to demolishing the wall.

"Still happy about your room?" George asked him with too much chipperness.

Sirius nodded. Ginny could see him out of the corner of her eye and saw he wasn't taking his eyes off of her.

"Get up to anything this weekend yourself?" Fred asked.

"Just time with friends." Sirius said slowly.

Ginny closed her eyes at his tone and dropped the sledgehammer down to the floor. This was the shortest lived ruse in history. "Alright, look. Obviously, we all saw the photo, and all I can say is that it isn't what it looks like. Alright? I don't need any grief about this because I'm pretty sure once my mum see's it she'll get in a tizzy and send me a Howler calling me a scarlet woman. NOTHING HAPPENED." She enunciated to her brothers and pointing at her mouth for full on clarification. "So, let's all just, get back to it. Alright?"

"Absolutely." George smiled a big fake smile at her. "Back to work Weasley's."

"Err. If you're staying, you'll need some goggles." Fred offered Sirius weakly.

Sirius wasn't interested in staying, nor was he putting a fake happy face on for show. He simply shook his head and his lips drew thin noticing how tightly Ginny was gripping her sledgehammer before he turned on his heel and closed the door behind him.

"That went well." Fred tossed the goggles back into the bag they'd come from.

Now she was frustrated and sad. Sirius had become a good friend of theirs. Now she'd disappointed him. She could have explained that Harry'd just been helping her out after basically being manhandled by her ex, but she didn't.

Lunch. She'd tell him at lunch what happened. Then she'd give him a treacle tart and he would be endeared to her once more.

()()()

Harry was watching the clock. At a quarter to noon, which was when he was going down to the permits and applications department and find Eloise. He'd apologize about the Prophet and ask her if he could take her to lunch.

Then she'd fall madly in love with him and they'd have lots of sex and babies.

Whoa.

Okay, maybe he was getting a little ahead of himself.

First an apology lunch, then he'd see if she was willing to go out with him.

He wasn't going to fuck this up by trying to go too fast. She seemed a quality girl, surely with the way she'd dressed down Michael the other night she wasn't hopping from one guy to the next. And from their own interactions it didn't seem like she was a fan girl.

His knee was bouncing up and down waiting for that damn clock to hurry up when the days paper was slammed down in front of him abruptly, turned to the picture of he and her from Saturday night. He followed the arm that was still resting on the photo up to the angry face of his godfather.

"Sirius? What-" He started, bewildered.

Sirius pointed a finger directly in his face. "No. Just. No. You said you were done with all that, and then I open the paper this morning and see this." He was furious.

"That isn't what it looks like." Harry explained.

"It better bloody not be. You can't dick her around. Not her. Anyone else. Not. Her." He said, jabbing a finger closer and closer to Harry's face with every period

Harry had never seen him this angry before.

"I am not bloody dicking her around." Harry defended, standing up from his chair. "I'll have you know that-" He started but took a look around and saw all the curious and interested faces of his coworkers looking in. He went around his desk "I really like her." He said after closing the door. "I haven't so much as kissed her. Or any other girl for a month."

Sirius scoffed. "Don't say 'a month' like it's some milestone that's allowing you to claim a prize." He started pacing. "And what do you mean you really like her? Do you even know her?"

"I don't know her, know her. But I know she plays Quidditch, and likes fish and chips, hates champagne, has a niece named Victoire, she stands up for herself." His rant started turning from angry to wistful. "She get's this cute crinkle between her eyebrows when she'd telling you off, she's beautiful when she's all dressed up, but when she's dressed down she really looks phenomenal. She's also got a wicked way of dealing with prats." He chuckled.

Sirius looked taken aback by his list of her appealing attributes. "Exactly how long have you and she-"

"We haven't." He said hurriedly. "I was only going to find her before lunch today and ask if she would. I don't know. Like to start... something."

Sirius pulled back the extra chair from the desk and took a seat, looking critically at Harry. "You think she might want to?"

"God I hope so." Harry breathed out as he rested back against the wall.

Sirius let out a loud exhale through his nose, his lips drawn together tight still searching Harry's face for any sign of deception.

"I assure you, I'm not going to just forget about this one. I'm done with all that. I want. I want something real this time, and I think she's special-"

"I know she's special. That's why I don't want you messing around with her unless you are absolutely sure."

"I- What do you mean you know she's special? You know her?"

"Of course I know her!" Sirius gave him a perplexed and offended look.

"How do you know Eloise?" Harry asked, astounded.

"Eloise?" Sirius looked confused. "Who the hell is Eloise? I thought we were talking about Ginny."

"Ginny?!" Harry asked bewildered and looked back at the photo in the paper. He thought back to what Ron had said. 'There's Eloise and my sister'. Harry had just assumed that the lighter haired red head was his sister, as it had matched Ron's. He felt as if someone had hit him over the head. Of course. She was Ginny Weasley, the one Sirius had been raving about. If she was Eloise, then why would she have attended a Ministry function as a plus one? She would have had the plus one. "I am such an idiot."

"You say you want something real with her, and yet you don't even know her name?" Sirius asked. "Harry." He warned. "She's come to mean a lot to me-"

"Five weekends in a row I've run into her, and you're telling me that this whole time, she's been at my house." Harry stated, starting to feel ecstatic. "I have to see her." He managed to put his hand on the doorknob when Sirius grabbed hold of his robes and put him back up against the wall.

"Listen here pup. I love you. You know I love you. But I can't let you pursue Ginny until you tell me one more time that this is different." There had been very few times that Sirius had pulled the parental figure card, but when he did Harry knew Sirius hated it. He also knew that he'd better damn well listen. "I know she can take care of herself. Hell, I saw her back at the house with a sledgehammer in her hands. But you'll have her, her six brothers, and me to deal with if you hurt her."

Harry considered that. For about half a second before he smiled and gave Sirius a hug. "She's worth the risk." He pulled back and opened the door, heading straight for the Floo. He was acting like a love-sick giddy fool, but it was the best he'd felt in... forever. He was bound and determined and nothing was going to stop him from pursuing her.

Harry came through to the sitting room on the main floor of Grimmauld Place and rushed through to the stairs. They were still finishing up the third floor, so after sprinting up two flights of stairs he quickly veered to the left, away from Sirius' room and threw open the first door he came across. He was rushing through it and came to an abrupt stop when found himself nose to nose with a tall ginger man. No doubt one of a set currently in the house.

"Err. Hi." Harry smiled awkwardly. "Any chance Ginny is around?"

"She's down in the kitchen." Came a voice from the other side of the room.

That would be the other twin, Harry thought to himself. "Right then... uh. Carry on. I mean... good job." He gave them a thumbs up and internally kicked himself for doing something so stupid to the two of them while they held demolition instruments.

Shamefully he backed out of the room and shut the door, only to hear laughter once he was on the other side. At least they found him amusing.

As he went back down the stairs he actually took the time to think about what he might say to her. 'Hello' seemed simple enough. How about 'what's a girl like you doing in a place like this'. That idiotic thought actually stopped him on the second floor landing. That would be an immensely stupid thing to say.

He rested his forehead against the wall and tried to think of some grand opening line. He gently knocked his head against the wall repeatedly, hoping that would somehow bring him inspiration on how to woo her. Then thought that the only people who use terms like 'woo' were tossers.

"Is it going to be my turn to take you to St. Mungo's?"

He spun around at the sound of her voice. "I uh." She was wearing her coveralls, but they were unzipped and the arms tied around her waist with a formerly white beater hugging her curves. There was no cap on her today. She just had her hair tied back in a pony tail. He just wanted to pick her up and have her wrap her legs around him while he snogged her against the wall.

She raised her eyebrows at him from his lack of response. "Thank you, by the way. I can't remember if I said that to you the other night, did I?" She smiled sweetly.

"You didn't have to." He assured her. "Would have done it for anyone." He added lamely.

Her eyes lost a little bit of their sparkle at that. "Okay then." She shifted the bag he hadn't noticed was on her shoulder and moved to head up the stairs.

"No. Wait." He panicked. "I came here to see you. I didn't know who you were. Running into you all those different places was completely by accident. Sirius only just told me you were the Ginny he'd been talking about. When Ron pointed you out at the bar I thought your name was Eloise. I was going to go down to her department at the Ministry today to apologize about the Prophet article and ask her to lunch. Which would have been entirely awkward because it was you I've been trying to... uh, bump into?" He opted for that instead of 'track down' or 'stalk'. "The Ministry gala, Diagon alley, the Quidditch Pitch, those were all completely a crazy random happenstance. I just. I want to know you." He ended lamely.

She was frozen on the first step up to the next landing, leaning against the banister and regarding him with surprise. "You've been trying to 'bump into me'?"

He felt like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar. "Um. Just this past weekend really. I, um." He blushed and gave a hard swallow. "I went to the pitch in Hogsmeade this past weekend when I thought you would be coaching."

"But you didn't know who I was until today?" She asked confused.

"Well. Your niece had called you Agony when we were at Diagon Alley. I didn't think that was a name, but..."

She laughed. She had a lovely laugh. "Aunt Ginny in child-speak comes out Agony." She told him.

Harry shook his head at his stupidity. "Of course it does. I was trying to figure out how one got Agony from Eloise."

She tilted her head and studied him. "Why do you care who I am? You don't know me, and you have plenty of girls clamoring to get in there." She gestured in the direction of his room. "Why spend precious time looking for me on Saturday mornings?"

Merlin this was embarrassing. He couldn't tell if she was even interested, she was playing her cards close to the vest.

"Since I've been working here I've stumbled across not just a wayward bra, but a wayward broad too. From the size of her tits she wasn't the owner of said bra."

"I told you I was a mess a month ago." He said with a pained voice. "I don't want that anymore. I just want-." He stopped himself from saying 'you' and making a complete and total ass of himself. He started for his room. "Come here."

"Excuse me?" She asked offended.

"No!" He spun around and put up his hand in a desperate attempt to let her know that was not at all to be taken how it sounded. "Not like that. I just want to show you something."

"Not much better." She told him with an amused lilt to her voice but came to follow him.

He opened his bedroom door and led her over to his dresser. He opened the drawer she'd fixed her first week there and closed it again. "See?"

"Yeah." She shrugged her shoulder and crossed her arms. "I fixed your drawer. So?"

"That fucking drawer was the start of my day. Every day I would struggle with the thing to get it opened and closed and it was a huge piss off. I'd start off every day in a bad mood because of that stupid drawer. And then you came along. You weren't even working on this floor, but you fixed the one thing that annoyed me the most and made my days better." He explained. "I've made a hell of a lot of mistakes trying to figure out how to make myself happy. But less than a week into my life, when I don't even know it, you make me happy." He came to stand in front of her and put his hands on her hips, like he had two days ago. "Please. Will you give me a chance. I'll be a perfect gentleman. I promise."

She was looking up at him with her mouth slightly open in awe.

"Please." He begged.

()

"I.." Ginny took a step back, even though her entire body was telling her to go forward. "I really don't know you." She really wanted to, but she'd been so wrong before and this man in front of her with the killer eyes and drool worthy everything else was saying all the right things. But actions spoke louder than words, and she'd encountered the after of his actions twice in this room alone. She didn't need to fall for another guys lines. She didn't want to be that girl.

He looked hurt by that. "I guess that's true." He hesitated. "Then get to know me. I really want to get to know you. I really like what I know so far, and... Please?"

The hero of the wizarding world was in front of her, standing in his Auror robes and vulnerably pleading for a chance with her.

She looked over at his dresser in an attempt to tear her brain away from the only thought that was going through her head while looking into his eyes. That thought was to jump him right then and there. She'd certainly thought about it often enough lately. There was a little toy in her bedside table that was getting a little more exercise than usual because of those thoughts.

But that dresser. The one in front of her, it really needed to be stripped down. This whole room would be completely different next week, and she still had near two months left working here before the job was done. Getting involved with him when it could so easily turn ugly was a bad idea when it could interfere with her work.

She put her hands over his on her hips and gently removed them. "I have a lot of work to do in this house. And you admitted that you are a mess, trying to figure out how to be happy. Maybe you should focus on that right now, because I have to focus on this." She gestured around the room. It was an entirely hard thing to say. She wasn't exactly fragile, but that didn't mean she could just forgo any sort of caution when it came to her emotions.

And this man could do some serious damage to her emotions.

His shoulders sagged and he looked defeated. "Yeah." He sighed and let go of her hands. "I guess I just had to ask." He shifted on his feet and slowly moved around her, stopping at the door to turn back. "That wasn't a no." He sounded confused and hopeful.

That hopefulness, that made all kinds of wanton feeling rush through her veins. Being wanted by a sexy man was doing a lot for her ego then. She went towards the doorway and stood in the arch with him, her body only an inch from his as she paused on her way out. "That's right. It wasn't." She said provocatively and made her way back to the stairs heading up to her brothers trying to shake off all of the tingles going up and down her spine.

It wasn't the most cautious way to deal with that situation, but boy did it feel good to flirt with him like that.

()

Harry smiled dopily as she walked away from him. It looked like she was adding a little bit of a sway of her hips for his benefit.

Her answer hadn't been no, it had been a not right now. And that did make sense. He had a reputation and she had a job to do. He'd wait for her. It had been a month already that he'd stopped going out and making stupid choices and he already felt so much better about himself because of it. Two more months and maybe he'd be in an even better state of mind to try having a proper relationship.

He knew who she was and where she was now. He'd spend these next two months proving to her how good they could be together. Proving that he was worthy of a shot. He would just have to figure out how to go about that.

Stories of how his father had wooed his mother had been told to him several times over. It had worked for his dad. He'd made a complete fool of himself doing it, but he'd won his girl over. He'd serenaded her in the halls of their school, sent her charmed love notes, shouted through the halls of Hogwarts that he was going to marry her someday.

People had laughed at him. But what did James Potter care when Lily Evans finally gave him a chance and they fell in love.

Ginny Weasley was someone he wouldn't mind looking like a fool for. She was the first person he'd ever felt this way about.

Reaching the base of the stairs on the main landing the Floo came to life as he entered the sitting room.

"Well?" Sirius asked stepping out. He was staring intently at Harry, still not looking overly thrilled with the idea that Harry might be messing around with one of his new favorite people.

"You can relax. She doesn't want to start anything with me." Harry told him rather sadly and went to grab a pinch of Floo powder. "Yet." He added and tossed the powder in the fireplace to swirl away back to the Ministry.

Sirius had a problem with Harry's promiscuity and hadn't said anything to him for ages. But never had Harry felt about a girl the way he felt about Ginny, so Sirius just didn't understand. She wasn't some girl he was going to fuck and forget. She meant a lot to Sirius, Sirius meant a lot to Harry. It was upsetting to think that Sirius didn't trust him with her.

He'd just have to show the two of them.

Once he got back to his office he sent off an Owl. He may have no idea how to go about wooing a woman, but he was going to do everything he could think of to get Ginny to give him a shot.

()()()

"I think the basement should have a workout space too." Ginny told the twins while they ate lunch. They'd been trying to figure out how best to make the basement more of a useful space, rather than just for storage, which was how Sirius had anticipated it would be.

It was a week since she'd spoken to Harry in his bedroom and she'd only seen him once since then.

Sunday she'd stopped by the Burrow for brunch and he'd been there smiling brightly at her and making her blush with his continuous lingering looks. He'd been invited by Ron and her mum to join the Weasley brood in a game of pick up, and he turned out to be quite naturally skilled on a broom. Apparently between Ginny's, Harry's and Percy's corroborating explanation for the page six incident her parents believed them and didn't hold it against anyone but the Prophet for getting the facts wrong. So now Harry was welcome to her childhood home any time.

"Yeah. That would probably be useful for our soon-to-be brother in law." Fred teased. "And can you sit over there?" He pointed to the other side of the room.

"What?! Why?" Ginny asked, only curiously offended.

"Because you smell." George answered for his twin, not looking up from his food.

Ginny groaned and moved away from them. "It's not my fault. My flat is so full up with flowers that the whole place reeks!" Harry had been sending her at least two bouquets a day. Individually they all smelled lovely, all together however they were an assault to the senses. But she did have an idea for what to do with them. "I promise you I will not smell like this tomorrow."

Flattering as it was to get all this male attention, particularly from this male, Harry really needed to work on his approach and she had a plan for that evening to make sure he understood just how overboard he was taking this.

They were working in Harry's room now and she should smell like methylene chloride, but no. She smelled like the worst kind of potpourri. At least she would stink up his room slightly, not that he was currently sleeping in it. His things had been moved up to the fourth floor guest room.

He had left a few little things in his room however. There were scraps of parchment she kept coming across from him.

_-Your eyes are so beautiful. They make me think of melted chocolate. I could stare into them forever if you'd let me. _

_-**When I see your adorable scowl I want to kiss right between your eyebrows and make you smile.**_

_-Every new day is a chance for me to express my affection for you, as well as appreciation for you being the amazing person you are._

And on and on. He must have picked up a book on cheesy romantic love notes or something. it was truly embarrassing for her when Fred or George found one. "While you brighten everything in this world, nothing compares to the brightness you bring into mine." George read out from the parchment he found in the davenport. "Awe." The twins cooed together.

"You really need to ease up on that love potion you've been slipping into the coffee." Fred commented with a smirk.

Ginny buried her face in her hands to hide her smile.

"I drink that coffee too." Sirius said from where he'd just appeared by the door. His attitude in regards to his godson's attempts to win her over had lost some of it's initial trepidation with every passing day.

"So where are your love notes for our fair Ginny then?" George asked him.

"I don't need a note." He scoffed, then came to his knees in front of her. "Love is not a game of chance, but I'll try my luck if that is fate." He took her hand and held it to his cheek. "Because all I know is I'd love to dance, if my hand you would only take." He professed with a dramatic pose of his free arm and looked at her expectantly.

"Anyone ever told you that fate's a bitch?" Ginny asked wryly.

"Come to think of it. I have heard that somewhere before." Sirius got up and went over to the spread in front of Fred and George to grab a small piece of treacle tart.

Ginny went over and took the parchment from George and pulled a pen from her bag, turning it over to the blank side.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked her.

"Retaliating." She smirked and held it up in front of her to proclaim to the room. "You are my treasure. But I am not a pirate. If I were, I would have to bury you somewhere. Winky face." She grinned and they all laughed. "Think I'll go put that one in his underwear drawer." She skipped out of the room.

()()()

Harry was in a good mood the next morning when he got to work. He'd found Ginny's note in his drawer that morning and had a good laugh about it. She was being receptive.

It was because he was thinking about that so hard he was oblivious to the looks he was getting from his coworkers, the sidelong glances and humorous smirks. The closer he drew to his office he started noticing them though, and grew slightly concerned.

All was explained when he opened his office door and was assaulted with the overpowering stench emanating from the hundreds of flowers scattered all over his desk, file cabinet, chairs and the floor. He quickly covered his nose and cast a bubble charm over the entire office to try and contain the smell.

Stepping back he stared open mouthed at the number of flowers that were covering his office then his eyes focused on a single note that sat upon the only bouquet that was still in a vase on the floor just beyond the open door. He summoned it and took note of his name written in the same untidy, but still legible, scrawl that was on his note from Ginny he'd found that morning.

Dearest Harry,  
I hope you are enjoying the fragrant flowers. I've been told they have an everlasting charm on them, so your office will smell like this for a while.  
My flat was quite overrun with them you see, so I thought I'd share them with you.  
I've kept my favorite and invite you to try and figure out which one's those might be.  
Enjoy!

Kisses, Ginny

He started laughing, surprising his coworkers around him who hadn't seen him do that before.

After a quick inventory of what different flowers were in his office he banished them. The smell did linger though, and not just in his office, on him as well which led to his needing to head home at lunch to shower and change.

He poked his head into the kitchen and the rooms on the second floor but no one was there. Disappointed he headed up to the fourth floor and had his shower. After wrapping a towel around his waist he went back to the guest room and caught Ginny coming out of the room.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide with surprise when she saw him, and trailed down his torso with a growing blush. "Oh." She smiled cheekily. "Felt the need to change, did you?" She was clearly pleased with her little stunt.

He grinned and slowly moved towards her, using his one free hand he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Lilies and Gerber Daisy's." He said in a low voice.

Her eyes sparkled at him, their beautiful brown depths that he could just sink into if she gave him the chance. "Figured that out, did you?" Her breath hitched and she took a small step back.

He took a step forward. "Very pretty flowers. But I'm glad they have that charm on them." She raised her eyebrows in question. "Regular flowers would surely just give up and wilt rather than try to outshine your beauty." He was laying it on thick, and having fun doing it.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I really hope you aren't actually that cheesy." She took another small step back.

He moved forward again. She was almost back against his door jam. He leaned forward slightly. "I'm sure I'll tone it down after a year or two." He said lightly and moved forward again so his body was almost touching hers. "Or five." He reached up to touch her chin and tilt her head up. "Maybe ten." He whispered and lowered his head to hers, pausing mere millimeters before their lips would touch waiting for her to stop him.

His heart was thundering in his chest, he was sure she could hear it. As her eyes slid closed he came the rest of the way forward and their lips touched.

A crescendo broke out in his brain at the sensation of his mouth on hers. Finally, finally he knew this was real. They fit together so perfectly. Her soft lips against his were what he knew was all he was missing from his life. His hand came behind her neck to pull her closer to him.

She was kissing him back and he was fighting down the lion in his chest telling him to pick her up and press her back against the wall with her legs wrapped around him. But then her hands ran up his torso and around his neck, into his wet hair.

He would have kept kissing her forever if his towel hadn't started coming undone. Harry pulled back in time to grab the end of it before it fell to the floor and secured it, regarding her face for her reaction.

Ginny's eyes blinked open and she licked her slightly swollen lips. There was a slight glow to her face that he felt pleased to have put there.

"I have to go." She told him in a daze.

"Why were you up here?" He hadn't thought to wonder about that before, but she had clearly just been in his temporary bedroom when he'd come across her.

Her face flushed a little more, but there was a mischievous glint in her eye. "You'll just have to wait and find out." She smirked and moved out from between him and the wall. "You should probably get changed and head back to work."

"You don't want to come and watch?" He teased and tilted his head towards the guest room.

"Not this time Harry." She took the zip of her coveralls between her two fingers and started pulling down on it slowly. "I'll be too busy getting all hot and sweaty in your bedroom." She said seductively as the zipper made it's way over the crest of her chest and down to her torso. She was wearing a shirt under the coveralls, but it was still very enticing. She stopped when her hand was at her belly button.

He was frozen staring at the small indent in the fabric of her undershirt where her belly button was. She was so fit. She actually would be getting hot and sweaty in his bedroom all day, and he was quite disappointed he wouldn't be the cause of it. She waggled her eyebrows at him and bit her lip in a smile before disappearing down the stairs.

Once she was out of sight he looked down at his towel, which had a slight tent forming beneath it, and wondered if he should head back to the shower to deal with that now, or let those thoughts build up all day for a more satisfactory release at the end of the day.

He shook his head and went into the bedroom to see the bed had been made and there was a bunch of foil wrapped chocolates on the bed in the shape of a heart with an arrow through it. He laughed in surprise and went closer. They were the Muggle chocolates, Hugs and Kisses. That's what she'd been doing. Harry shook his head and went to the closet and pulled out his spare uniform.

It wasn't until later that night that he actually tried to eat one of the chocolates as he moved them off the bed and noticed that his vision had been altered, everything was slightly rose colored now. She'd added a potion to the chocolates.

Damn, that girl was crafty.

()()()

Ginny arrived to the Burrow for Sunday brunch and saw that her brothers had already taken to the air on the Quidditch Pitch and went into the kitchen to say hello. She was surprised to see Sirius sitting at the table with her father. "Hey!" She said to him.

"Well hello there." He smiled.

"Ginny dear. We were just getting to know Sirius here. Harry brought him." Her mother told her from the stove.

"Harry's here?" Ginny looked back outside and saw that there was a dark head of hair in the air among the red.

He'd only kissed her the one time over a week ago, but she'd been thinking about it and re-playing it in her head ever since it happened. It was easily the best kiss she'd ever had. But she was still hesitant about starting anything with him right now.

She and the twins were nearly done with the second floor of Grimmauld Place and were happy with how the house was coming along. So was Sirius and Harry.

On Thursday this past week Sirius invited them to stay for dinner and Harry had been there, making sure to sit right beside her.

He'd learned his lesson about the flowers and stopped sending her any more, but she had gotten tickets to the Holyhead vs. Tutshill Quidditch game for last weekend in her post two days after they'd kissed. There were two tickets, and while she thanked him for them, she'd invited Jordana another coach of her little league Qudditch practices. He hadn't said anything about it.

When she and Jordana got to their seat she realized why he hadn't asked to join her at the game. He was in the seat beside her with some friends of his own, Remus and Tonks Lupin. He seemed pleased with himself, and she had to admit, that was a clever move on his part.

The game had been great. She chatted a bit with the Lupin's and she'd celebrated the Holyhead Harpies victory by jumping up and down and winding up with her arms around Harry in a hug that lasted twice as long as her one with Jordana.

"Good to see you Sirius. I think I'll go out and join the game they have going." Ginny gave a kiss to her mum and dad and headed for the broom shed.

It was a nice sunny day and she held up a hand over her eyes to see who all was playing, but couldn't see Harry anymore. Just Ron and the twins.

The door to the shed was already open and she bumped right into Harry who was seemingly waiting for her.

"Hi." Her greeting was cut off by his mouth on hers. She reacted instinctively, pulling him closer and responding to his kiss. Ginny wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted everything that she'd been trying to protect her hesitant heart from in regards to him.

Their kiss turned frantic, hands in each others hair, grasping at clothes to fit themselves together more completely. He licked her bottom lip and she opened her mouth to him moaning when he grabbed behind her legs to hoist her up.

Harry walked her backwards so she was against the wall of the shed and began trailing hot kisses down her neck. She let out a loud moan when he reached the dip in her collar bone and he quickly covered her mouth with his hand to hush her. She rocked her hips against him wantonly and tilted her head so his hand would move off of her mouth, then wrapped her lips around one of his fingers and sucked on it.

Harry pulled his head back and watched her do this with dark eyes. "Ginny." He said warningly.

He looked so delicious and dangerous in that moment and she was tempted to shut the door to the shed and have him take her right there and then, not caring if was going to treat her like every other girl he'd had before.

Harry seemed to have remembered himself before she could let her inhibitions fall any further and lowered her back to the ground, mechanically stepping back from her but not letting go of her hips while she found her footing. He leaned his head forward once more and gave her a short but meaningful kiss before letting her go and picking up his broom. He left the shed with-out saying another word.

Ginny's whole body was tingling as she tried to come down from her high and squash her lust filled mind. After running her fingers through her tangled hair she readjusted her clothing and picked up a broom.

At this rate there is no way she wouldn't be caving to him before her job was done.


	3. Three months is all it takes

Month Three

"I don't think I've ever seen you in as good a mood as you have been these past few weeks." Sirius commented over breakfast.

"Well, I've been feeling pretty happy." Harry smiled. "My room looks great. I'm super happy about that." The evening before the Weasley's had put the finishing touches on his room and stayed late to do so, which meant that Ginny had been there when he'd gotten home and he'd been thrilled to see her, regardless of the fact that he didn't have the opportunity to kiss her again.

They'd stripped back the drywall on his far wall and whitewashed it to be an accent wall with the stonework with his headboard against it. They'd also expanded the size of his room by knocking down a wall and added a doorway. His room now had two doors, one to the hall and one to his walk in closet that had another door leading to a remodeled bathroom. It was fantastic, so modern and roguish. It really felt like a creative mans area. The whole room seemed to inspire him to start doing something that involved working with his hands and yet he'd fallen into such a content sleep last night.

Ginny hadn't stopped pranking him either, so that was also making him happy. There was a teddy bear hidden beneath his pillows. When he held it out in front of him he chuckled, the belly of the bear read 'hug me', he did and it bit him.

He'd been trying to think up something to send her that she would appreciate. Not more flowers, or trick candies and teddy bears, but something to spoil her a bit.

He'd tricked her into going to the Quidditch game with him two weekends ago, and he knew she wasn't mad about that. Or that he kept getting himself invited over to her family home when he knew she'd be there.

She had seemed a bit stiff when he gave her a hug over his room last night, and he was sure it wasn't out of discomfort with their proximity. Maybe some sort of bath products and a bottle of wine could be in order.

"This isn't just about your room." Sirius circled a finger indicating his whole face. "It's Ginny, isn't it?" There was an uptick to the side of his mouth.

Finally it seemed like he'd managed to convince his godfather that his actions with her were based on genuine feelings.

"It's her whole family really." He admitted. "I mean, yes, I really like Ginny and I hope she feels the same way about me. Be quite devastated if she doesn't to tell you the truth. But between her, Ron, the twins, and even her mum and dad they're just all so... great."

"Her brother Percy was the one that helped her get into your office." Sirius admitted with a grin. It was clear that he thought as much of the Weasleys as Harry did. "He works at the Ministry."

"Right. Yes. Met him at St. Mungo's and again at the Burrow." Harry chuckled at the memory of that prank and the accompanying stink.

()()()

Running her hands under the tap she tried to scrub off the plaster that had caked to her skin. Part of the wall in the back of the sitting room had been in worse shape than they'd thought and from the look of it, it was from something disturbing. Not just usual mold and rot more like blood had seeped into the wall, or a potion had gone horribly wrong.

She wanted to get it dealt with before leaving for the evening and had just finished sanding down the new plaster so it could dry overnight and set for them to paint the next day.

The door to the kitchen opened behind her and with-out turning around to see who it was she felt a thrilling tingle go up her spine.

Fred and George had taken off and Sirius had a dinner date, which meant that it could only be one person.

She shut off the tap and felt him come right up behind her, his head lowered and he placed a gentle kiss below her ear that made her shiver with lustful tingles.

"You are covered head to toe in something." He whispered with a chuckle.

She cringed. She was covered in a thin layer of white dust. Her tan coveralls were white now as was the small amount of hair that wasn't tucked up into her cap, and it was surely stuck in larger clumps to her sweaty neck. She was uncomfortable from the sweat and dirt and was hoping to get out of the house and back to hers for a shower before Harry came home and saw her like that.

"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it." She tried to play it off.

"You know, there is this lovely new shower and bath installed in my room. The jets are amazing. And very relaxing." He traced circles on her hip with his thumbs, then started moving them inwards towards her spine and giving her a light back rub.

Bracing both hands on the sink she pushed back slightly into his hands and he worked his way up her back. It felt so good. None of her past boyfriends had just volunteered a back rub, not that Harry was her boyfriend. The telling her to take a shower or a bath part though, that had happened before.

"I'd offer to scrub you down if you like." Harry told her in a low voice that made her head roll back slightly.

"I. Can- Oh that feels so good." He worked his way up to her shoulders. "You do have a nicer shower than I do." She admitted.

"And it would be much easier for me to wash your back." She could hear the smile.

She bit her lip and shrugged his hands off of her gently, turning around to look up at him. He was so handsome and her resolve was fading further and further away.

"Or I could stay down here and make you dinner." He offered.

She swallowed and nodded her acceptance. That sounded amazing.

"Good." He traced a finger over the apple of her cheek and gave her a smile before leaning his head down to give her a kiss. They both sighed into the kiss but pulled back after only a moment.

She managed to pull away from him and head towards the door. Heading up the stairs to his room, to use his shower, Ginny wondered if this was a good idea. She was going to be getting naked in the bathroom that he used. One that he had probably been naked in just that morning.

She entered his room and saw that once again his bed was unmade. Passing through the walk-in and into the bathroom she pulled her cap off and unzipped her coveralls quickly before she could change her mind, then she caught her reflection in the mirror.

He'd drawn a heart in the dust on her cheek.

Smiling like a school girl she turned on the shower and shed the rest of her clothes before stepping in.

The water pressure and temperature were perfect, and much nicer than what she had at home. She could see his tub through the glass of the shower door. It was a very nice soaker tub, long enough that she wouldn't have to bend her knees to try and sink in far enough to get the water over her breasts. Harry had invited her to use the shower and the bath, but her stomach wasn't keen on her taking too long.

Grabbing his shampoo, she washed her hair and gave a scrub to her skin with his soap. She let out a groan and the feel of the grime leaving her skin and the smell of his products. Just his scent on her was turning her on.

Shutting off the water she stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself before grabbing her wand and freshening up her clothes.

By the time she made it back down to the kitchen Harry had whipped up some lemon pepper chicken with veggies and biscuits. It smelled great. And he had pulled out some wine glasses.

"I hope you didn't have pizza and beer in mind." He grinned, looking quite proud of himself.

"Maybe next time." She replied automatically with a sultry look and took a seat at the table across from him.

"Good to hear." He took her glass and poured her some white wine. "Are you getting much use out of what I sent you last week?"

She couldn't fight the smirk on her face. "Are you asking how often I've gotten naked in a bubble bath recently?"

"Of course not. I'm asking how many nights this past week you've gotten naked in a bubble bath with a glass of wine. And thought of me." He clarified.

She felt heat rise to her cheeks and didn't answer but turned her attention to the food. He didn't need to know exactly what she'd been doing in that tub while she thought of him. "This looks and smells lovely." She picked up her fork and knife and dug into it. It was a simple meal but would fill her belly to just the right amount.

Particularly if he was going to be providing dessert too.

He started asking about her day, and from there there was never a lull in conversation as the topic turned to Quidditch, then to her niece and siblings, then on to Sirius and how much Harry was enjoying his room. Harry put their dirty dishes in the sink and set them to clean and dished out some ice cream for dessert.

"So then, with all the kids moved out mum started baking goods for Ron's deli and now it's looking like a success." Ginny smiled and accepted the rest of the bottle of wine that Harry poured her.

"I just love how big your family is. Was it weird being the only girl?" Harry banished the dessert dishes to the sink and set them all to clean themselves as well.

"It caused a little bit of animosity with Ron. He got a lot of hand-me-downs when I would get these new-ish dresses."

"Bet you would have preferred the hand-me-downs." Harry guessed.

Ginny laughed. "Yeah. Not much of a dresses kind of girl."

"Was that the problem with your last boyfriend?" He was getting around to the serious questions now.

Ginny bit her lip and thought about how to answer. "I guess he had been hoping that I was a little more feminine. Really didn't like that I would show up for our dates smelling like chemicals sometimes."

His brow furrowed over that. "That can't possibly be why it ended."

"That and other things. He wanted someone a little more polished. When the excitement of the new relationship wore off and I realized I didn't really like him." She shrugged. She wasn't about to tell him how Michael's selfishness in bed had been a major factor to the excitement wearing off.

"This was the guy from last month? The one at the pub?"

"Yeah."

"He was a real prick."

"Turned out to be, yeah."

"You deserve better."

Ginny smiled and let out a single laugh. "You mean you?" She asked.

"Yes." He told her seriously.

He was looking at her so intensely. She could feel a warmth settling right between her legs from the desire that was radiating off him. Just as powerful as when they were in the broom shed at the Burrow.

He stood up and came over to pull her out of her seat, pressing their bodies together and claiming her mouth.

Stars went off behind her eyelids with the passion he was putting into their kiss. She sunk her fingers into his hair to hold him against her, never wanting it to end, but wanting so much more.

Harry reached down and grabbed her behind her legs to place her back on the table. She broke their kiss long enough to scoot back farther onto the table and drag him down on top of her. The pressure of his body on top of hers was making her inner goddess purr with satisfaction. His weight pressing down at all the right places, his hand wandering, and his lips on hers was exactly what she wanted.

They both groaned with pleasure when he rocked against her. Her brain was fuzzy from wine and a need for sex and his mouth was moving down her throat and making her moan in ways she'd only ever dreamed of. She pulled up on his shirt, wanting to touch his bare skin. He came back up to take her mouth again and groaned against her lips when her hand wandered to his front and down towards his belly button.

The distant sound of the front door opening and closing caused them to jerk apart. They stared at each other as they heard footsteps, at least two people, and the sound of a muffled giggle.

Sirius' date seemed to have gone well, but they didn't sound like they were going upstairs. The footsteps grew closer to the kitchen.

Harry slid his arm under her back and tugged her closer to him side-apparating them to his bedroom without so much as a pop sound.

Ginny let out a surprised 'eep' sound as she sank back into his mattress. "How did you do that silently?" She asked. She'd been apparating for years, but there was always a cracking noise. He did it completely silently. It wasn't an Auror trick either.

He just raised an eyebrow at her in response.

Of course. He was Harry Potter. He would have a few tricks he was capable of that she didn't know were possible. Like how to survive the killing curse.

But now they were in his bedroom, in his bed, and he was still on top of her and settled even more comfortably between her legs. This time _she_ captured _his_ lips and pulled him to lay even more on top of her. The softness of the mattress made so much difference. He slid his hand down to her bum to grab her there firmly, she wrapped her legs around him in response and he growled and bucked against her again.

"Mmm, Ginny." He moaned and moved to kiss his way down her body again. "You know how. I said I was trying to be. A better person." He said between kisses.

She managed a whimper in response and tried to pull his shirt off.

He pulled back to get his shirt over his head. Ginny pulled off her own and they each took a moment to admire the others newly exposed flesh. "I don't want to rush into this." Harry told her.

"You mean you don't want me topless and in your bed?" She asked trailing a finger down his torso. She could feel his erection, he'd been making his affections known for weeks now. He wanted her, and that made her feel powerful.

"Oh, I want you there." He rubbed his hardness against her middle and her head rolled back. "Over and over and over again." He traced along the line of her bra under her breasts with his fingers then moved to follow that same line with his mouth. "But I'm not going to go all the way with you tonight."

That caused her to pout in disappointment. She'd been putting him off sure, but he clearly wanted to have sex with her as much as she wanted him to, and was his hand not reaching behind her to undo her bra right now? "You aren't?" He was smiling against her stomach.

Yes. He'd gotten her to admit she wanted it. Point Potter, but he was confusing her with his words.

And making her feel wonderful.

He pulled off her bra and buried his face in her bosom. She wasn't particularly busty, but he seemed to be getting along fine with her small c-cups. "You deserve better than just some quick sex. And with how badly I want you right now, well" He didn't finish his sentence, instead he took her nipple into his mouth and she arched her back at the sensation.

She was still confused. He was working her up into a frenzy. Then he undid the drawstring on her trousers and delved his hand inside her knickers.

"YES!" She hissed as he rubbed at her nub. Her toes were curling as he worked at her.

He dipped one finger inside her, then another and used his palm to keep pressure against her clit. "Gods you're so wet."

Ginny's eyes were closed tight and she was gripping at his arms to keep her grounded. She'd never managed to get off with penetrative sex before with a partner and had been left disappointed so often. This was nothing like that. She rocked uncontrollably against his fingers completely wanton.

He was working at her sex as she rocked against his hand and kept grabbing at him blindly with lust Finally after what couldn't be more than five minutes she slammed her hands down to grab a fistfull of the bed sheets as her orgasm ripped through her and a satisfied cry erupted from her lips.

Her eyes stayed closed while waves of pleasure rolled through her body. Harry's fingers stayed exactly where they were, but she felt him fall to the bed to lay beside her and he seemed to be fumbling a bit before.

There was a steady movement of the mattress for a minute that she didn't have the ability to investigate and then, "Oh God." He gave a long moan.

Her eyes flew open and she looked over to see that he'd taken himself in hand. Literally, his hand was in his trousers and she could see a small amount of moisture by his belly button.

"You weren't kidding." She said in amazement.

At her voice he seemed to have caused him to regain his senses and he blinked at her a few times before looking thoroughly embarrassed with himself. "Oh shit. I." He slowly extricated his hands from beneath both of their trousers. "I can't believe I did that. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She said, still in a bit of awe, but also proud of how much she'd managed to work him up. Getting a man like him so turned on that he couldn't think straight and feel like he had to touch himself right away was something she didn't think happened in real life. He'd barely managed to wrap his hand around himself before he was shooting off too.

He still looked embarrassed with himself, like he wanted to hide under the blankets and somehow turn back time to three minutes ago. Ginny felt down her leg for where her wand was still tucked into its special pocket and cleaned them up before straddling him.

She took his hands and placed them over her breasts. "I quite enjoyed that." She simpered. "In case you couldn't tell."

"Are you kidding?" He asked incredulously and massaged her soft mounds. "When I felt you. And then I just had to." He sat up and pulled her close so they had the most skin on skin as the position could allow. He cupped the back of her head and brought her mouth down to his.

She lost herself in their kiss again and slowly pulled back after a minute. "I should probably go."

He tightened his arms around her slightly. "I don't want you to leave." He pulled her down to lay beside him. "Stay." He rolled them onto their sides and twirled a strand of her hair in his fingers.

She was already fighting off sleep as it was and his skin against hers felt so good. She was worried though. Right now it felt good to be here beside him, but she couldn't help but imagine waking tomorrow and leaving his room only to be caught sneaking out by Sirius. That would make her feel so cheap. Just another girl in his string of conquests.

"What is that expression?" Harry asked and traced a line down her face.

Her face must have given away her struggle with her insecurity. "I don't want to get caught by Sirius sneaking out." She bit her lip and avoided Harry's eye.

"You still don't trust that I've changed my ways, don't you." He asked sadly.

She let out a sigh. "I've been messed around with before Harry."

"I'm not messing around with you. I've been trying to show you every way I can think of that I want something real with you." He said slightly frustrated. "What will it take to prove to you that I'm serious? What more can I do?" He pleaded.

"Nothing." She shook her head sadly. "It's me. I liked the flowers, and the notes, and the bath stuff and wine." She told him honestly. "I just can't help picturing the worst scenario." She didn't want to let him know that he had the ability to completely destroy her heart.

Harry leaned down and kissed her gently. "I've never bought flowers for anyone before. I've never written love notes. I've never met another girls parents. I've never stalked little league Quidditch before." He added with a smile and she snickered. "Even Sirius has come around to realize just how much I like you."

His words were making her feel warm all over. She wanted to squash her vulnerability down. She was a Weasley damn it. They didn't question, they just did.

"Okay." She smiled.

"Okay? You'll stay the night?" He confirmed happily.

"You'll actually let me sleep?" She asked trailing a hand over his torso and biting her lip while she looked deep into his eyes.

"No promises." He grinned and rolled her onto her back. He tugged at her trousers and she lifted her hips to help him slide them down over her bum. He shimmied his own trousers off and tossed them both to the floor.

His hand slid up her leg as he came back to lay back beside her. "My client might not be too happy about my work if I'm too tired tomorrow to do a proper job." She murmured playfully.

"Don't worry about your client. I think he'll be in too good a mood tomorrow to notice much of anything." He kissed down her side to her hip bone.

She sucked in a breath as his kisses moved down along her panty line. He grabbed her behind her knee and hooked her leg over his shoulder before nuzzling his nose against her sex. "Harry!" She cried out.

She was still sensitive from her last orgasm.

"Mmm. Lets see how many times I can get you to say my name." He teased and pulled her panties to the side, rather than taking them off, which somehow made it hotter. His tongue went straight to her clit and she cried out again. "You taste good."

Ginny swallowed deeply as he licked, sucked and swirled his tongue into her and over her clit. Every time he brought her close to the edge he'd change up his tactic and build her up all over again. It was blissful torture. He'd stimulate her clit until she was ready, then start thrusting inside her with his tongue, then move back to her clit as she was getting into his thrusting movements. When he did some kind of hissing tongue vibration movement over her clit as she was near her breaking point she actually screamed his name as she came.

She felt paralyzed after, unsure if she actually blacked out for a moment. Harry still had his head between her legs as she was coming down from her high, his mouth lapping up at her entrance. It was almost too much. "Okay. Okay. You need to stop." She panted.

He chuckled and came up to lay beside her, fixing her panties so they lay properly. "I've always wondered what reaction I would get from that." He grinned down at her.

"You've never done that before?" She asked astounded. That was the most fantastic experience of her life.

"No." He kissed her shoulder. "The, uh, hissing bit. I've wondered about what reaction that might get."

She didn't have the brain power to question it. She just closed her eyes as he tugged her close.

()()()

Ginny couldn't recall a time that she had woken up quite this comfortable.

This mattress was a dream cloud, the blanket was so completely soft and perfectly snug. It felt wonderful against her bare skin.

The heat coming off the sexy man beside her that had made her cry out in ecstasy several times the night before might have had something to do with it too.

Harry had been amazing.

She supposed that it was nice to know at least something good came from his experiences with ALL those other women. Something that, again, she couldn't really fault him for. He had a huge weight placed on his shoulders from a young age, his parents ripped away from him, and was the bringer of peace to the British wizarding world. He deserved to let loose and be a little careless now that he could. This was the list of understandable reasons she'd told herself over and over again.

She just couldn't help worrying that she had just been his next target, and now that they'd spent the night together, even though they didn't have actual intercourse, he'd just move on to the next. He had told her that that wasn't the case. He was actually invested in her.

Why though, she didn't get. There were certainly prettier and more busty girls that had fallen all over themselves to get into his trousers. Maybe he just had decided he needed a 'capable' girl instead of a 'fan' girl.

But all of his actions and words had been perfect and lovely. If he was like that with every other girl then the female population was doomed.

And she certainly didn't want to miss out on her dream guy because her past boyfriends had been so convincing playing that game with her as well.

Instead, she was going to bask in the morning light and snuggle more into Harry.

"Shit!" She sat straight up and checked the tempus on her wand. '8:03a.m.' "Shit! Harry, you need to wake-up." She shook his shoulder gently.

As she moved to get out of the bed his hands shot out around her waist and pulled her back up against him. "What's the rush? You're already at work." He rolled on top of her and started kissing lazily down her neck.

"The rush is... it's..." It was getting hard to concentrate with how good he could use his mouth on her body. "Brothers. Food. Shower. Mmm. Sirius." She managed with less and less determination. It had been months since he'd been touched intimately and it felt amazing. Particularly how he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it too.

"I've never showered with anyone before." He murmured before he nuzzled his nose against her belly button.

Her eye's popped open at that. It helped that he stilled his movements. She looked down at him and saw his shit-eating grin.

Her morning shower took quite a bit longer than usual. And it had been a hell of a lot more enjoyable having Harry run the soap all over her body, and she did the same for him. She'd been unable to stop herself from using her hand on him, and he returned the favor.

After casting a quick freshening charm on her clothes from yesterday she pulled them back on, and Harry dressed in his Auror robes.

Getting out of the room without getting caught had been a question for her. This was all new, and she didn't want to possibly disappoint or worry Sirius about it. Ideally nothing like this would have happened until after she'd finished working on the house, but life wasn't always like that.

There were anti-Apparation wards around the house to stop people from Apparating in and out, once inside the wards one could Apparate room to room no problem, but they had no idea which rooms were currently in use. It was pushing 8:45 and the twins could have been there by now. There was also no telling where Sirius was, or the woman he brought home the night before.

"You aren't ashamed or anything, right?" Harry asked her, with a slightly nervous and vulnerable air that made him all the more endearing.

She smiled up at him and gave him a soft kiss. "No, I'm not. It's more about having to hear about it all day. You at least get to get out of the house and away from the three of them."

"Good." He relaxed. "Maybe we should just head downstairs. I'll have to go straight out the door to get to work on time."

"Then I'll go straight to the kitchen and claim I was out of food at home and make myself some breakfast." She grinned. "Can't manage all day without. You took quite a lot of energy out of me last night."

He grinned. "I can do that again tonight if you like." He hugged her to him.

She couldn't tear her gaze away from his amazing emerald eyes. Last night had been incredibly amazing, and they hadn't talked at all about what this meant or how/if they were going to tell anyone what they were doing or even who they were to each other now. "I should be home by six. Can you come to mine tonight?"

His grin got bigger and he seemed quite happy with that plan.

()()()

The second she got home she started tidying up. There was a man coming over and her place was choc-a-block full of... stuff.

She'd been in the throws of a big work project that wore her out, and on the weekends she was running errands and coaching children's Quidditch and going out with her friends. Housekeeping wasn't top of her priorities.

Her mum hadn't stopped by in a while either. That usually kicked her butt into gear. The Burrow may have had knick knacks all over the place, but it was actually quite clean. Her mum would take one look at the state of her kitchen counters and tisk so hard that the strange man three floors below her would hear it and hop to cleaning up his flat as well.

Thankfully, nothing had seemed out of sorts when she helped herself to Sirius' kitchen that morning. He and his lady friend, Elena, had a lay in and came down for food after she and the twins had already gotten started on the common room. The twins hadn't mentioned anything about her clothes either, perhaps they hadn't noticed that she was wearing the same shirt. That or she was actually slovenly like that on a regular basis and hadn't noticed.

She'd left her address for Harry on his bed, and it was pushing 5:50 now.

Food!

There was nothing edible in her cupboards that she could make something of, and this wasn't the classiest neighborhood that she lived in with several take-away options to choose from.

As she piled her discarded clothes in the living room into her arms and threw them in the washing bin she tried to think of what she could possibly whip up. It was dinner time after all, he might be hungry.

There was cheese! And crackers. Possibly some olives somewhere in the back?

Quickly she went to the bathroom and tossed any various bottles of whatever into the cabinet under the sink and scorgified the floor and other surfaces.

Her bedroom was a mess too!

Company was stressful.

Her need to straighten out bed sheets was one thing, but it didn't stop the clutter from forming on all other surfaces. It was like she needed that one spot to be her safe haven, everything else could just fall apart around it.

There was a knock at the door as she was about to head towards the kitchen to check for food stuffs.

She opened it to see Harry standing there with something that smelled like take-away. "Oh, you're perfect." She sighed.

"Thought you might appreciate it." He grinned and stepped into her flat, properly greeting her with a kiss that got her stomach fluttering a bit. "Must say, not a fan of your neighborhood."

Ginny rolled her eyes. She'd heard it before. No one liked her neighborhood much. She lived in Derby, where the local dialect sounded like they had marbles in their mouth while they spoke, and the local industry was developing ways to get out of Derby. But it was getting cleaner, and her building was all magical and the right price.

"I'm hardly home often enough for it to truly matter where I live. Everything I need is a quick Apparation or Floo away and I wanted to live on my own, so this is in my price range." She stated as she guided him down the hall to her sitting room.

"Argued that a few times before have you?" He teased as they sat on the couch and he opened up the bag he'd brought with him.

Accepting one of the containers he gave her she inhaled deeply. "Pad Thai?"

"It is. Do you like it?"

"Love it." She beamed. "Thank you." She took the pair of chopsticks offered. "So my mum was very against me moving out on my own. I was her last child at home once Ron got the deli and moved into the flat above it so I think she hoped I'd stay at home until I found someone to become a house wife for, like her."

"I don't really see you as the housewife type." He commented, digging into his own container of delicious noodles.

"I'm really not. And if that was what she wanted for me, she should have shipped me off to Hogwarts to try and land a husband then." Harry's eyebrows went up at that. "It's how she met my dad." Ginny explained. "I on the other hand was educated with my brothers at home. Costs for school items would have pretty well depleted our vault. Seven cauldrons, uniforms, various other supplies and books and what-not, plus replacing them regularly. Not so easy without family money and only having one income."

"The Burrow looks great though." His brow furrowed.

"Oh, it was! Is." She assured him. "I loved growing up there, wanted for nothing. But if she wanted me to follow in her footsteps then she went about it all wrong. Ron actually spent more time with her in the kitchen than I did. Personally, I think it was because of the easy access to food, but he made a career out of it so." She shrugged.

"Not many dating prospects around there then?"

"No." She chuckled. "The only other wizarding family close by that had a son was about twenty kilometers away, but he was a few years older than me and rather... pretty."

"Pretty?" Harry chuckled, clearly not quite understanding her use of that descriptive word.

Ginny chuckled too. "Yeah. He was a pretty boy. Meanwhile I was always covered in dust or dirt and slightly smelling of staining agents. I didn't have my first kiss until I was seventeen, and it was a muggle boy from down the village. His mum owned the consignment shop my brothers and I took our refurbished goods to."

"Still have me beat." Harry told her. "I was eighteen for mine, and I don't have any idea who she was. It was after the war and it took me a while to come to terms with my newfound freedom."

"And then you ran with it?" She asked, meaning he went buck wild and started his playboy ways with the boost from his 'Most Eligible Bachelor #1' status in their world. A resentful look came to his face. "Hey, I'm not calling you out or anything. I get that you were deprived of certain life experiences the rest of us had. It would be only natural to, well, take what was thrown at you." She offered.

Harry cringed at that. "Yeah. I tried hiding out for a while too. Was kind of lost for a while. A long while actually." He put down his take-away container. "Until you came along really." He took the container from her hands and put it down too, taking her hands in his and moving closer to her. "Ginny, I'm absolutely serious about this. I want to be with you more than I've wanted anything."

Swoon.

He was saying and doing everything a girl dreams about a handsome, brave, funny and crazy rich guy saying and doing to and for her.

"You look happy about that." Harry said quietly. Hopefully.

She could only imagine the star-struck look on her face right then. "I am." She whispered.

"Then you'll be my girlfriend?" He asked, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

Ginny sucked in a deep breath. "You mean you'll take me on dates and to ministry events and be exclusive. All of that?" She asked with a little tease.

Harry smiled. "All of that." He leaned forward and sealed it with a kiss. "I may need some coaching on what's expected of me in a boyfriend capacity."

Ginny cocked an eyebrow. "I think you proved last night that you have a full understanding of that part."

He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Liked that did you? But what I mean is in terms of how to deal with your family. You've met all mine now, but six is a lot of brothers. I've also never been on a real date, so please be gentle with me if I do it wrong."

Ginny laughed out loud at that. "I don't know how one goes about 'doing a date wrong', maybe don't order for me or ogle the waitress." She offered. "And as for my brothers, well, Ron likes you. The twins have come around, and the rest of them will eventually too."

"The twins came around eventually? Did they not like me?" He asked her confused.

"Ah." She hesitated. "They didn't not like you. It was more to do with your reputation, followed by your slightly over enthusiastic efforts to get in my pants. Their words. Not mine."

He looked put out by that. "But they like me now?" He wanted assurance.

"Yes. They've gotten to know you better from the dinners at the Burrow. They figured if you were able to make it through those then you had to be, um... properly interested?" She reached over and picked up her Pad Thai again and handed Harry his.

"Okay." He nodded lost in thought. "I do still want in your knickers though."

"Good."

()()()

Harry didn't stay the night at Ginny's place. They had slowly eaten their dinners and talked all evening. He'd stolen many kisses but wanted to organize something special for their first real date. They both had work the next morning, and he wanted to take her out somewhere special as the next day was a Friday and they would have the option to have a lay in the following morning. Ideally they'd be in the same bed for that.

Friday morning he'd bumped into Sirius in the kitchen and mentioned he'd be out that evening. Then had to assure him that he was not giving up his quest for Ginny's affection, nor was he seeing anyone else. He would in fact be out _with_ Ginny.

Sirius hesitated as though he was still not 100% sure that Harry and Ginny together was a good idea so soon after he'd screwed his head on straight. Recovery programs often suggested a year before attempting a serious relationship. Harry understood where Sirius was coming from but couldn't help how it hurt a little that Sirius didn't believe his commitment. Sure, he and Ginny had really only just met, but he felt something real there. It was the first time he'd ever felt like this, and it was hard to envision anyone else having the same effect on him.

Now it was Friday evening, and Harry was back in front of Ginny's door. It was almost 6 and he was slightly nervous. The plans he'd made for their date were entirely appealing to him, and he hoped that they would be appealing to her too. But he also didn't know if he should act as eager about this as he felt or try to tone it down a bit so she didn't think he was crazy. Though, that ship may have sailed with how he'd attempted to win her affections. And by the end of the night she was sure to have realized how much he wanted to impress her and prove that he would treat her right.

He looked down at his watch. 5:57.

Close enough. He knocked on the door and it opened a moment later.

She looked so refreshed, like she'd come home and had a quick shower and still had plenty of energy left over for their evening together. But the smile on her face when she first saw him slipped into one of slight confusion and curiosity as she looked down at his clothes.

He looked down to see what it was that made her look at him like that. He'd put on a pair of cleanly pressed dark jeans with a jumper that had an understated color, and a light leather jacket over it. He'd even opted for his suede walking boots instead of dress shoes or sneakers. He'd put thought into the outfit. "What's wrong?"

"Uh. You look great." She raked his eyes over him. "Kind of a casual classy, and ready for anything. Kind of like you could be ready for a pub night, but also for inclement weather."

"Oh." 'Shit' He added to himself. She didn't have any idea where they were going, nor was she dressed appropriately for their destination. Her shorts wouldn't be warm enough, and her off the shoulder sweater would not do her any favors either. "Any chance you could attempt to match my 'prepared look' in about ten minutes?"

She looked taken aback. "Why ten minutes? Did you make a reservation somewhere?"

"Port-key." Harry said slowly. He'd forgotten that some places needed reservations and didn't actually know if the place he planned on taking her required them either.

Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. After one loud inhale she turned around and rushed into her bedroom.

He sighed and entered the flat, closing the door behind him. He really should have sent her an owl or something during the day. Or not hesitated outside her flat for so long.

The previous evening, he hadn't gotten a chance to really look around her place. He'd been to focused on her, but it was a cute little flat. One bedroom, a small kitchen just large enough for a two-seater table, one that had miscellaneous items piled on it indicating she rarely used it, and a small sitting room. The pictures on the wall were what brought a grin to his face.

It was all of her friends and family. One in particular drew his attention of her and all her brothers, in order of age it looked. They were making faces at the camera. The eldest two looked slightly intimidating, especially the second eldest who was the dragon handler. Charlie looked to be all muscle.

There was a small photo frame on her bookshelf of her and an impossibly blonde girl. The two of them looked to be around seven and they were sitting on the ground beaming up at the camera.

"That's Luna." Ginny said behind him.

He spun around and saw she'd changed into walking shoes, tight jeans and a comfortable dark cowl neck sweater that hugged her hips. She'd pulled her hair up into a messy bun as well. It was perfect for what he had planned. "You look great." He put his hands around her waist and pulled her close so he could give her a kiss.

"Now can I know where we're going?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen cap, clasping it between their palms. "We have a minute or so left. If you don't recognize it, then I'll tell you."

"Oh Merlin, you aren't being incredibly cheesy and taking me to Paris, are you? Because these outfits do not say Paris." She joked.

"No." He grinned, then he leaned forward and went about passing the rest of the time left in a very enjoyable manner that he'd been thinking about all day.

By the time the Portkey transported them off he had already grown lightheaded from desire and literally had to hold on to Ginny in order to not fall down. She seemed to be in very much the same state. Once they'd sorted themselves out Ginny looked around. "Well. I can't say that this lorry loading area looks much different than a few other's I've seen." She joked.

Harry laughed and took her hand to lead her to a more recognizable area. Currently, yes, they were in a lorry loading area. It was the safest, generally Muggle free, area close to where they were going. He led her around the Centro Cultural de Belem and towards the main road, across from which was Padrao do Descobrimentos, something he didn't know whether she would recognize or not.

From the expression on her face, she didn't.

"We aren't in England anymore, that much I can tell." She offered with raised eyebrows, checking out the giant monument.

Harry chuckled. "Lisbon." He told her.

"Portugal?!" She was astounded, looking around as he led her across the busy street.

"I came here when I was doing my travelling. I liked it. The people seem just a little more laid back, and the architecture is quirky and fun. Plus the food." He pointed to the restaurant he'd planned to take her to, which was mercifully not too busy. It wasn't quite tourist season here, and this restaurant was more for tourists than locals. It was completely glass sides. Even the kitchen and bathrooms were underground, so every seat had a view of the monument and the seaway and island across from it.

Ginny giggled in surprise and eagerly followed beside him. "You know, you're not supposed to pull out all the stops on the first date. Might set my expectations really high."

"Oh, don't worry. We have a bit of a hike after dinner. You'll be begging for pub fare for the next one." He teased.

Ginny scoffed. "Show's what you know. I like hiking."

He pulled her to him then to give her a deep kiss before they reached the doors of the establishment. "And that makes me like you even more."

Dinner was a simple pizza and gelato. Harry wasn't surprised that Ginny could manage a whole small pizza to herself. The woman had a labor intensive job, it was good to know she could eat. The whole dinner they shared their travel experiences. It turned out she'd only been to three places other than the United Kingdom; Romania, Egypt and France. Where as he'd been to over thirty countries in his whirlwind trip. It probably would have been more enjoyable if he'd managed to stay and relax in some of the places he'd visited, but he'd always felt like he was out to find something and it hadn't been where he was.

Ginny was just such enjoyable company, he was already picturing properly travelling with her to new and exotic places. Ideally somewhere where she'd have to wear a bikini.

After he paid up they headed along the Main street along the harbor area. It was slowly getting darker, and it would be properly dark by the time they reached where he was taking her next. Walking the streets arm in arm with her was a nice feeling, and the fact that she wasn't complaining, but actually enjoying the long walk they had before them made it even more enjoyable.

He liked being able to be out in the fresh air. He'd been in hiding for so long, then he was by himself for a while after the war. These last few years he hadn't really known what to do with himself and more often than not just wound up moping in his bedroom or at a pub. Neither of those things were something he liked.

"How far away is this second location exactly?" Ginny asked after they'd been walking for about an hour.

He grinned sheepishly. "Uh, it was about and hour and a half from the restaurant."

That didn't phase her. "And am I allowed to know what this location is called?"

"Well, we." He glanced down at his watch and laughed internally, he'd forgotten that the gates were closed to the public at six. "We will be breaking into Castelo de Sao Jorge for a tour."

"What?!" She laughed outright.

"Yeah." He felt his cheeks blush slightly. "I enjoyed watching the sun go down and the city light up from the battlements. I wanted to show it to you."

()()

Harry had another portkey set up to bring them back to Ginny's flat for 10pm. By the time they landed in her sitting room she was quite glad to be back. The date had been the most amazing date of her life, but as they sat on a buttress of the Castle overlooking Lisbon and the harbor in the darkness it had gotten a little bit uncomfortable with the cold stone beneath her bum.

"Did I do alright?" Harry asked, his emerald eyes looking very hopefully into hers.

Ginny grinned up at him. "It was great. And I think there's just one thing that I need right now." She said slowly going up on her tip toes, then dodging slightly to the side when Harry leant down for a kiss. "Hot Chocolate." She purred in his ear. She laughed a little at his startled expression when she pulled back, then headed into her kitchen to set the kettle to boil. "Do you want one?"

He followed her into the kitchen. "I would like one, thanks." He situated himself against the door frame while she grabbed two mugs and some hot chocolate mix from her cupboards.

Ginny chewed her lip while Harry watched her moving around. He'd been at her place all of yesterday evening, but it was still a little odd for her to have a man over. Her last boyfriend had only stopped in once or twice and hadn't spent the night there. Michael didn't like her flat. It really was a cozy little space she had here. Just large enough to fulfill her basic needs, including a drafting table in the corner of her sitting room, but Michael's place had more room so if they were going to spend the night together it was there. And even those were few and far between.

She helped the kettle along with a wave of her wand and poured out the water into the cups, adding a few marshmallows before handing one to Harry. "Thanks." He smiled.

He looked quite comfortable in her flat. He had yesterday as well. She watched as he took a tentative sip and the steam fogged up his glasses. "Now will I be expecting all of our dates to include that much physical activity?" She asked leading him around the sofa so they could get comfortable.

Harry chuckled. "I did warn you that I might be a little off when it came to dates. That, er. This was my first one. Uh, properly."

Ginny felt frozen staring at him in slight shock, and feeling a warmth spreading through her face and belly. She was the first girl he'd ever dated? Her breath hitched and a silly grin came across her face.

"Are you laughing at me?" Harry asked with a confused smile on his own face.

"No!" She assured him with a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. I don't know why that's made me so happy." She giggled. "It just has."

"I told you I hadn't found anyone I wanted more with until I found you." He told her straightforward.

Ginny stopped her laughter then and put her mug down on her coffee table, followed by his mug and straddled him. Harry was clearly surprised by her move, but it took him less than a second to respond to her kisses.

Ginny simply melted into him. His words, his attitude, his strong hands and his lovely mouth. Everything about him made her want to pant with need. He'd been nothing shy of amazing with her since the second time they'd met and she desperately wanted him. She clawed at his jumper as that desperation radiated out from her chest and into her hands. He pushed off from the sofa back so she could pull the jumper over his head, his undershirt came with it and she was quite pleased with that.

As soon as he'd yanked his hands out from the cuffs he pulled at her own jumper and twist them so she lay down underneath him. As he resumed kissing all legible thoughts flew from her brain while his hand wandered to her waist and slowly slid up her side, tantalizingly tracing along just under the strap of her bra, the sensation making her moan and rock against him.

"Ginny." Harry groaned and pulled back slightly. He swallowed hard before saying "I know there's supposedly this 'third date rule'."

Ginny groaned in frustration from the loss of his lips. "Shut up Harry." She grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him back down on top of her locking her lips on his again.

He made no move to pull back again, nor any other sign that he had an objection to what was going on. Rather his fingers found their way under her bra and were luxuriously massaging her breast. That coupled with the hardness she felt against the inside of her thigh was making her quite mad with want.

Over the past few months she'd had a growing desire for him. Her little toy she had tucked away in her bedside table had been getting the work out of its life over the past few weeks in particular. Their night at his two days ago had seemed to just spur her on more. Particularly given the fact that he'd spent the evening with her yesterday and his intoxicating scent lingered on her couch. She'd needed that toy twice before her hormones were calmed enough to let her fall asleep.

Every time she kissed him these hormones would just become more amplified. Regular dating rules were hardly a concern for her at this point. The boy had just taken her on a date in a foreign country and they'd broken the law. What was a few more supposed rules? Plus, they'd spent the last three dinner meals together.

She was too eager and desperate at this point.

Her hands trailed down his back to grasp at his bum and rock harder against him, to which they both groaned in appreciation.

Ginny reached between them to undo the buttons on their jeans. Her hint was immediately taken by Harry who frantically worked to undo his button and lower his zip without removing his mouth from her neck.

With the two of them trying to work their own jeans down in such a small surface area they wound up toppling over off the sofa, Ginny landing on top of Harry. But this didn't slow them down. Harry had managed to free his erection from its confines and was sat up, kissing her frantically while she had gotten her jeans and knickers past her knees and was awkwardly straddling him while fighting to free at least on of her legs.

Finally! One leg was free and without any more thought she lowered herself onto him.

His groan at the sensation of him filling her matched her own. She was just. So. Full. Her head lolled back and mouth hung open at the feel of him.

It took no time for her to push him back so he was laying down and she was grinding herself up and down on him in a desperate pace. She'd been halfway close to cumming while he had her on the couch.

Now that he was inside her and the grinding stimulation was stimulating her clit the way it was, all it took was about ten seconds and she was crying out her orgasm. Then Harry joined her over that edge a moment later.

Ginny lay there on top of him slowly coming down from her high, and slightly dumbfounded. That was the quickest sex she'd ever had. And she'd actually cum.

Inexplicably she started giggling, and she couldn't stop herself. Harry started chuckling too and wrapped his arms around her waist.

They hadn't even managed to take their tops off.

She looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest. He was looking down at her with his eyes shimmering with the humor of it all and grinning. "I can honestly say I don't believe that has ever happened to me before."

"What, never had a girl roll you off a couch and last under a minute after hopping on?" Ginny laughed, then groaned as she unsheathed him. The sensation was like getting a gentle rub of a tight muscle. It felt lovely and disappointing in that it only lasted a moment.

Harry breathed out a loud breath at the sensation as well. "I had rather hoped to show you that I could be gentle and thorough in bed. Not last all of five seconds on the floor." He sounded a bit disappointed with himself.

Ginny sat up, still straddling him. "Well." She started, feeling rather more like a vixen at the moment. "If you want to stay the night and prove yourself to me. I could be open to that idea."

"Really?" His sexy grin came onto his face, and his hands grasped her bare thighs. He sat up and captured her lips. "And what about tomorrow night?" He kissed her jaw. "And the night after that?" His hands moved up her sides to remove her top. After it came off over her head he kissed the crest of her breasts. "And the one after that."

"Hmm." Ginny let her head fall back as he nuzzled her. "Let's see how you do tonight, and I'll tell you in the morning."

()()()

After one more month Grimmauld Place was complete. It was no longer a house, but a home. There was a workout space and small scale potions lab in the basement with a climate controlled storage area in the basement. The kitchen had been completely moved around so that it now had a large window looking out over the previously never used backyard, through which the indoor herb garden was flourishing. The whole kitchen felt like a healthy and happy place to create culinary masterpieces and bake treats. The breakfast nook had been changed up to an 'L' shaped bench seat area with three chairs on the outside. The long counter and work space had easy storage above and below it, and a stove top in the island across from it.

The main floor sitting room had French doors installed on one side that led to the never used ballroom area, which now doubled as gymnasium as Fred and George had installed a Muggle basketball hoop that could easily be folded to the wall and hidden behind a curtain. The sitting room itself had remained a formal greeting area, but it now had an understated posh-ness about it.

The Weasleys had outsourced to a gardening company to help landscape the backyard. It was a small postage stamp sized area, but there was enough room to have a patio area with a barbeque built in the center with a wraparound garden hosting a variety of foliage that would come into their seasonal maturity at different intervals so that spring through fall there was always something in bloom. Neville Longbottom had been who they'd called in. He and Harry had hit it off as friends, particularly once they learned how close their parents had been.

The carpeting under the first-floor stairs and along the halls of the main floor had been hiding perfectly wonderful hardwood that needed only minor touches to bring to life.

Sirius had been so overjoyed with the transformation, as had Harry. And really, as had the Weasley siblings. It was a huge undertaking and all their plans and themes had really come together to create a wonderful space.

Sirius invited everyone he could think of over to show the place off once it was done and praised the Weasley's so much that they now had more work than they could deal with. They could have done with hiring on some extra workers for their team, but couldn't bear the thought. It was the quality of the work that they wanted to insure. Their name was their brand. It was their heart and passion that made these jobs so successful. So they decided to keep it just the three of them. Either the customers clamoring for them to do jobs would wait their turn or find someone else because Fred, George and Ginny were a trio and that was that.

Harry finally managed to join a Quidditch League after several weekend sessions getting whipped around the pitch at the Burrow and having enough experience. He ended up being a Chaser on a Saturday afternoon team in Hogsmeade, which meant he could join Ginny for lunch after she was done coaching the kids.

Harry and Ginny wound up being nearly inseparable.

The two of them had been together officially for nine months when the subject of her flat lease expiring came up and Harry asked her to move into Grimmauld. Sirius was keen on the idea. Harry and she would have all the privacy on the second floor, and really they'd been spending nearly all their nights together anyways. So she gave up her flat and moved in with the two of them.

It was a year after their first date in Lisbon that Harry took her back there to break into the castle once more and put a ring on her finger.

It may have seemed a bit odd to some people how she, Harry and Sirius all lived together even after Ginny's surname switched to Potter, but it worked for them. Particularly when little James came along not long after their third wedding anniversary and 'grandpa Sirius' was eager to help out with the baby.

Sirius himself had a few steady girlfriends over the years, but never one that stuck around longer than a few months. But he could honestly say that he'd never been happier than when he had a toddler climbing all over him at their family dinners and wasn't looking to change a thing about his life anymore, nor of his godson's.

**()()()**

**Want everyone to know that your favorite Hinny authors have all banded together and created a real life collaboration of original works. It is called 'Into the Mystic' and you can find it through most of your literary sites like Amazon or Barnes and Noble plus several more.**

**Ffn doesn't do hyperlinks, so copy the link below and remove the spaces if you'd like to check it out through Amazon!**

**amazon . com dp/****1938808568/**


End file.
